e-artnow

The next day was the day of the party. Not a word more was said on that evening between Bell and her cousin, at least, not a word more of any peculiar note; and when Crosbie suggested to his friend on the following morning that they should both step down and see how the preparations were getting on at the Small House, Bernard declined.

“No; not at all as you are. You are an accepted lover, and will be allowed to do anything,—whip the creams, and tune the piano, if you know how. I’m only a half sort of lover, meditating a mariage de convenance to oblige an uncle, and by no means required by the terms of my agreement to undergo a very rigid amount of drill. Your position is just the reverse.” In saying all which Captain Dale was no doubt very false; but if falseness can be forgiven to a man in any position, it may be forgiven in that which he then filled. So Crosbie went down to the Small House alone.

“Dale wouldn’t come,” said he, speaking to the three ladies together, “I suppose he’s keeping himself up for the dance on the lawn.”

“I hope he will be here in the evening,” said Mrs Dale. But Bell said never a word. She had determined, that under the existing circumstances, it would be only fair to her cousin that his offer and her answer to it should be kept secret. She knew why Bernard did not come across from the Great House with his friend, but she said nothing of her knowledge. Lily looked at her, but looked without speaking; and as for Mrs Dale, she took no notice of the circumstance. Thus they passed the afternoon together without further mention of Bernard Dale; and it may be said, at any rate of Lily and Crosbie, that his presence was not missed.

Mrs Eames, with her son and daughter, were the first to come. “It is so nice of you to come early,” said Lily, trying on the spur of the moment to say something which should sound pleasant and happy, but in truth using that form of welcome which to my ears sounds always the most ungracious. “Ten minutes before the time named; and, of course, you must have understood that I meant thirty minutes after it!” That is my interpretation of the words when I am thanked for coming early. But Mrs Eames was a kind, patient, unexacting woman, who took all civil words as meaning civility. And, indeed, Lily had meant nothing else.

“Yes; we did come early,” said Mrs Eames, “because Mary thought she would like to go up into the girls’ room and just settle her hair, you know.”

“And we knew we shouldn’t be in the way. Johnny can go out into the garden if there’s anything left to be done.”

“He shan’t be banished unless he likes it,” said Mrs Dale. “If he finds us women too much for his unaided strength—”

John Eames muttered something about being very well as he was, and then got himself into an armchair. He had shaken hands with Lily, trying as he did so to pronounce articulately a little speech which he had prepared for the occasion. “I have to congratulate you, Lily, and I hope with all my heart that you will be happy.” The words were simple enough, and were not ill-chosen, but the poor young man never got them spoken. The word “congratulate” did reach Lily’s ears, and she understood it all;—both the kindness of the intended speech and the reason why it could not be spoken.

“Thank you, John,” she said; “I hope I shall see so much of you in London. It will be so nice to have an old Guestwick friend near me.” She had her own voice, and the pulses of her heart better under command than had he; but she also felt that the occasion was trying to her. The man had loved her honestly and truly,—still did love her, paying her the great homage of bitter grief in that he had lost her. Where is the girl who will not sympathise with such love and such grief, if it be shown only because it cannot be concealed, and be declared against the will of him who declares it?

Then came in old Mrs Hearn, whose cottage was not distant two minutes’ walk from the Small House. She always called Mrs Dale “my dear,” and petted the girls as though they had been children. When told of Lily’s marriage, she had thrown up her hands with surprise, for she had still left in some corner of her drawers remnants of sugarplums which she had bought for Lily. “A London man, is he? Well, well. I wish he lived in the country. Eight hundred a year, my dear?” she had said to Mrs Dale. “That sounds nice down here, because we are all so poor. But I suppose eight hundred a year isn’t very much up in London?”

“The squire’s coming, I suppose, isn’t he?” said Mrs Hearn, as she seated herself on the sofa close to Mrs Dale.

“Yes, he’ll be here by-and-by; unless he changes his mind, you know. He doesn’t stand on ceremony with me.”

“He change his mind! When did you ever know Christopher Dale change his mind?”

“If he promised to give a man a penny, he’d give it. But if he promised to take away a pound, he’d take it, though it cost him years to get it. He’s going to turn me out of my cottage, he says.”

“Jolliffe came and told me”—Jolliffe, I should explain, was the bailiff,—”that if I didn’t like it as it was, I might leave it, and that the squire could get double the rent for it. Now all I asked was that he should do a little painting in the kitchen; and the wood is all as black as his hat.”

“How can I do it, my dear, with a hundred and forty pounds for everything? I must live, you know! And he that has workmen about him every day of the year! And was that a message to send to me, who have lived in the parish for fifty years? Here he is.” And Mrs Hearn majestically raised herself from her seat as the squire entered the room.

With him entered Mr and Mrs Boyce, from the parsonage, with Dick Boyce, the ungrown gentleman, and two girl Boyces, who were fourteen and fifteen years of age. Mrs Dale, with the amount of goodnature usual on such occasions, asked reproachfully why Jane, and Charles, and Florence, and Bessy, did not come,—Boyce being a man who had his quiver full of them,—and Mrs Boyce, giving the usual answer, declared that she already felt that they had come as an avalanche.

“But where are the—the—the young men?” asked Lily, assuming a look of mock astonishment.

“They’ll be across in two or three hours’ time,” said the squire. “They both dressed for dinner, and, as I thought, made themselves very smart; but for such a grand occasion as this they thought a second dressing necessary. How do you do, Mrs Hearn? I hope you are quite well. No rheumatism left, eh?” This the squire said very loud into Mrs Hearn’s ear. Mrs Hearn was perhaps a little hard of hearing; but it was very little, and she hated to be thought deaf. She did not, moreover, like to be thought rheumatic. This the squire knew, and therefore his mode of address was not goodnatured.

“You needn’t make me jump so, Mr Dale. I’m pretty well now, thank ye. I did have a twinge in the spring,—that cottage is so badly built for draughts! ‘I wonder you can live in it,’ my sister said to me the last time she was over. I suppose I should be better off over with her at Hamersham, only one doesn’t like to move, you know, after living fifty years in one parish.”

“You mustn’t think of going away from us,” Mrs Boyce said, speaking by no means loud, but slowly and plainly, hoping thereby to flatter the old woman. But the old woman understood it all. “She’s a sly creature, is Mrs Boyce,” Mrs Hearn said to Mrs Dale, before the evening was out. There are some old people whom it is very hard to flatter, and with whom it is, nevertheless, almost impossible to live unless you do flatter them.

At last the two heroes came in across the lawn at the drawing-room window; and Lily, as they entered, dropped a low curtsey before them, gently swelling down upon the ground with her light muslin dress, till she looked like some wondrous flower that had bloomed upon the carpet, and putting her two hands, with the backs of her fingers pressed together, on the buckle of her girdle, she said, “We are waiting upon your honours’ kind grace, and feel how much we owe to you for favouring our poor abode.” And then she gently rose up again, smiling, oh, so sweetly, on the man she loved, and the puffings and swellings went out of her muslin.

I think there is nothing in the world so pretty as the conscious little tricks of love played off by a girl towards the man she loves, when she has made up her mind boldly that all the world may know that she has given herself away to him.

I am not sure that Crosbie liked it all as much as he should have done. The bold assurance of her love when they two were alone together he did like. What man does not like such assurances on such occasions? But perhaps he would have been better pleased had Lily shown more reticence,—been more secret, as it were, as to her feelings, when others were around them. It was not that he accused her in his thoughts of any want of delicacy. He read her character too well; was, if not quite aright in his reading of it, at least too nearly so to admit of his making against her any such accusation as that. It was the calf-like feeling that was disagreeable to him. He did not like to be presented, even to the world of Allington, as a victim caught for the sacrifice, and bound with ribbon for the altar. And then there lurked behind it all a feeling that it might be safer that the thing should not be so openly manifested before all the world. Of course, everybody knew that he was engaged to Lily Dale; nor had he, as he said to himself, perhaps too frequently, the slightest idea of breaking from that engagement. But then the marriage might possibly be delayed. He had not discussed that matter yet with Lily, having, indeed, at the first moment of his gratified love, created some little difficulty for himself by pressing for an early day. “I will refuse you nothing,” she had said to him; “but do not make it too soon.” He saw, therefore, before him some little embarrassment, and was inclined to wish that Lily would abstain from that manner which seemed to declare to all the world that she was about to be married immediately. “I must speak to her tomorrow,” he said to himself, as he accepted her salute with a mock gravity equal to her own.

Poor Lily! How little she understood as yet what was passing through his mind. Had she known his wish she would have wrapped up her love carefully in a napkin, so that no one should have seen it,—no one but he, when he might choose to have the treasure uncovered for his sight. And it was all for his sake that she had been thus open in her ways. She had seen girls who were half ashamed of their love; but she would never be ashamed of hers or of him. She had given herself to him; and now all the world might know it, if all the world cared for such knowledge. Why should she be ashamed of that which, to her thinking, was so great an honour to her? She had heard of girls who would not speak of their love, arguing to themselves cannily that there may be many a slip between the cup and the lip. There could be no need of any such caution with her. There could surely be no such slip! Should there be such a fall,—should any such fate, either by falseness or misfortune, come upon her,—no such caution could be of service to save her. The cup would have been so shattered in its fall that no further piecing of its parts would be in any way possible. So much as this she did not exactly say to herself; but she felt it all, and went bravely forward,—bold in her love, and careful to hide it from none who chanced to see it.

They had gone through the ceremony with the cake and teacups, and had decided that, at any rate, the first dance or two should be held upon the lawn when the last of the guests arrived.

“Oh, Adolphus, I am so glad he has come,” said Lily. “Do try to like him.” Of Dr Crofts, who was the new comer, she had sometimes spoken to her lover, but she had never coupled her sister’s name with that of the doctor, even in speaking to him. Nevertheless, Crosbie had in some way conceived the idea that this Crofts either had been, or was, or was to be, in love with Bell; and as he was prepared to advocate his friend Dale’s claims in that quarter, he was not particularly anxious to welcome the doctor as a thoroughly intimate friend of the family. He knew nothing as yet of Dale’s offer, or of Bell’s refusal, but he was prepared for war, if war should be necessary. Of the squire, at the present moment, he was not very fond; but if his destiny intended to give him a wife out of this family, he should prefer the owner of Allington and nephew of Lord De Guest as a brother-in-law to a village doctor,—as he took upon himself, in his pride, to call Dr Crofts.

“But you must like this Paragon. Not that he is a Paragon at all, for he smokes and hunts, and does all manner of wicked things.” And then she went forward to welcome her friend.

Dr Crofts was a slight, spare man, about five feet nine in height, with very bright dark eyes, a broad forehead, with dark hair that almost curled, but which did not come so forward over his brow as it should have done for purposes of beauty,—with a thin well-cut nose, and a mouth that would have been perfect had the lips been a little fuller. The lower part of his face, when seen alone, had in it somewhat of sternness, which, however, was redeemed by the brightness of his eyes. And yet an artist would have declared that the lower features of his face were by far the more handsome.

Lily went across to him and greeted him heartily, declaring how glad she was to have him there. “And I must introduce you to Mr Crosbie,” she said, as though she was determined to carry her point. The two men shook hands with each other, coldly, without saying a word, as young men are apt to do when they are brought together in that way. Then they separated at once, somewhat to the disappointment of Lily. Crosbie stood off by himself, both his eyes turned up towards the ceiling, and looking as though he meant to give himself airs; while Crofts got himself quickly up to the fireplace, making civil little speeches to Mrs Dale, Mrs Boyce, and Mrs Hearn. And then at last he made his way round to Bell.

“I am so glad,” he said, “to congratulate you on your sister’s engagement.”

“Yes,” said Bell; “we knew that you would be glad to hear of her happiness.”

“Indeed, I am glad; and thoroughly hope that she may be happy. You all like him, do you not?”

“And I am told that he is well off. He is a very fortunate man,—very fortunate,—very fortunate.”

“No; not because he is rich. But because, being worthy of such happiness, his circumstances should enable him to marry, and to enjoy it.”

“Yes, exactly,” said Bell. “That is just it.” Then she sat down, and in sitting down put an end to the conversation. “That is just it,” she had said. But as soon as the words were spoken she declared to herself that it was not so, and that Crofts was wrong. “We love him,” she said to herself, “not because he is rich enough to marry without anxious thought, but because he dares to marry although he is not rich.” And then she told herself that she was angry with the doctor.

After that Dr Crofts got off towards the door, and stood there by himself, leaning against the wall, with the thumbs of both his hands stuck into the armholes of his waistcoat. People said that he was a shy man. I suppose he was shy, and yet he was a man that was by no means afraid of doing anything that he had to do. He could speak before a multitude without being abashed, whether it was a multitude of men or of women. He could be very fixed too in his own opinion, and eager, if not violent, in the prosecution of his purpose. But he could not stand and say little words, when he had in truth nothing to say. He could not keep his ground when he felt that he was not using the ground upon which he stood. He had not learned the art of assuming himself to be of importance in whatever place he might find himself. It was this art which Crosbie had learned and by this art that he had flourished. So Crofts retired and leaned against the wall near the door; and Crosbie came forward and shone like an Apollo among all the guests. “How is it that he does it?” said John Eames to himself, envying the perfect happiness of the London man of fashion.

At last Lily got the dancers out upon the lawn, and then they managed to go through one quadrille. But it was found that it did not answer. The music of the single fiddle which Crosbie had hired from Guestwick was not sufficient for the purpose; and then the grass, though it was perfect for purposes of croquet, was not pleasant to the feet for dancing.

“This is very nice,” said Bernard to his cousin. “I don’t know anything that could be nicer; but perhaps—”

“I know what you mean,” said Lily. “But I shall stay here. There’s no touch of romance about any of you. Look at the moon there at the back of the steeple. I don’t mean to go in all night.” Then she walked off by one of the paths, and her lover went after her.

“Don’t you like the moon?” she said, as she took his arm, to which she was now so accustomed that she hardly thought of it as she took it.

“Like the moon?—well; I fancy I like the sun better. I don’t quite believe in moonlight. I think it does best to talk about when one wants to be sentimental.”

“Ah; that is just what I fear. That is what I say to Bell when I tell her that her romance will fade as the roses do. And then I shall have to learn that prose is more serviceable than poetry, and that the mind is better than the heart, and—and that money is better than love. It’s all coming, I know; and yet I do like the moonlight.”

“Yes. The poetry much, and the love more. To be loved by you is sweeter even than any of my dreams,—is better than all the poetry I have read.”

“It is the meaning of the moonlight, and the essence of the poetry,” continued the impassioned girl. “I did not know then why I liked such things, but now I know. It was because I longed to be loved.”

“Oh, yes. I would be nothing without that. But that, you know, is your delight,—or should be. The other is mine. And yet it is a delight to love you; to know that I may love you.”

“Yes; but it must not be the end of it, Adolphus. You must like the soft twilight, and the long evenings when we shall be alone; and you must read to me the books I love, and you must not teach me to think that the world is hard, and dry, and cruel,—not yet. I tell Bell so very often; but you must not say so to me.”

“You understand what I mean, dearest. I will not think it dry and cruel, even though sorrow should come upon us, if you— I think you know what I mean.”

“I am not afraid of that;—I am not the least afraid of that. You do not think that I could ever distrust you? But you must not be ashamed to look at the moonlight, and to read poetry, and to—”

But as he said it, he pressed her closer to his side, and his tone was pleasant to her.

“I suppose I’m talking nonsense now?” she said, pouting. “You liked me better when I was talking about the pigs; didn’t you?”

They were standing in the narrow pathway of the gate leading from the bridge into the gardens of the Great House, and the shadow of the thick-spreading laurels was around them. But the moonlight still pierced brightly through the little avenue, and she, as she looked up to him, could see the form of his face and the loving softness of his eye.

“Because—,” said he; and then he stooped over her and pressed her closely, while she put up her lips to his, standing on tip-toe that she might reach to his face.

As Crosbie walked back to the Great House that night, he made a firm resolution that no consideration of worldly welfare should ever induce him to break his engagement with Lily Dale. He went somewhat further also, and determined that he would not put off the marriage for more than six or eight months, or, at the most, ten, if he could possibly get his affairs arranged in that time. To be sure, he must give up everything,—all the aspirations and ambition of his life; but then, as he declared to himself somewhat mournfully, he was prepared to do that. Such were his resolutions, and, as he thought of them in bed, he came to the conclusion that few men were less selfish than he was.

“But what will they say to us for staying away?” said Lily, recovering herself. “And I ought to be making the people dance, you know. Come along, and do make yourself nice. Do waltz with Mary Eames;—pray, do. If you don’t, I won’t speak to you all night!”

Acting under which threat, Crosbie did, on his return, solicit the honour of that young lady’s hand, thereby elating her into a seventh heaven of happiness. What could the world afford better than a waltz with such a partner as Adolphus Crosbie? And poor Mary Eames could waltz well; though she could not talk much as she danced, and would pant a good deal when she stopped. She put too much of her energy into the motion, and was too anxious to do the mechanical part of the work in a manner that should be satisfactory to her partner. “Oh! thank you;—it’s very nice. I shall be able to go on again directly.” Her conversation with Crosbie did not get much beyond that, and yet she felt that she had never done better than on this occasion.

Though there were, at most, not above five couples of dancers, and though they who did not dance, such as the squire and Mr Boyce, and a curate from a neighbouring parish, had, in fact, nothing to amuse them, the affair was kept on very merrily for a considerable number of hours. Exactly at twelve o’clock there was a little supper, which, no doubt, served to relieve Mrs Hearn’s ennui, and at which Mrs Boyce also seemed to enjoy herself. As to the Mrs Boyces on such occasions, I profess that I feel no pity. They are generally happy in their children’s happiness, or if not, they ought to be. At any rate, they are simply performing a manifest duty, which duty, in their time, was performed on their behalf. But on what account do the Mrs Hearns betake themselves to such gatherings? Why did that ancient lady sit there hour after hour yawning, longing for her bed, looking every ten minutes at her watch, while her old bones were stiff and sore, and her old ears pained with the noise? It could hardly have been simply for the sake of the supper. After the supper, however, her maid took her across to her cottage, and Mrs Boyce also then stole away home, and the squire went off with some little parade, suggesting to the young men that they should make no noise in the house as they returned. But the poor curate remained, talking a dull word every now and then to Mrs Dale, and looking on with tantalised eyes at the joys which the world had prepared for others than him. I must say that I think that public opinion and the bishops together are too hard upon curates in this particular.

In the latter part of the night’s delight, when time and practice had made them all happy together, John Eames stood up for the first time to dance with Lily. She had done all she could, short of asking him, to induce him to do her this favour; for she felt that it would be a favour. How great had been the desire on his part to ask her, and, at the same time, how great the repugnance, Lily, perhaps, did not quite understand. And yet she understood much of it. She knew that he was not angry with her. She knew that he was suffering from the injured pride of futile love, almost as much as from the futile love itself. She wished to put him at his ease in this; but she did not quite give him credit for the full sincerity, and the upright, uncontrolled heartiness of his feelings.

At length he did come up to her, and though, in truth, she was engaged, she at once accepted his offer. Then she tripped across the room. “Adolphus,” she said, “I can’t dance with you, though I said I would. John Eames has asked me, and I haven’t stood up with him before. You understand, and you’ll be a good boy, won’t you?”

Crosbie, not being in the least jealous, was a good boy, and sat himself down to rest, hidden behind a door.

For the first few minutes the conversation between Eames and Lily was of a very matter-of-fact kind. She repeated her wish that she might see him in London, and he said that of course he should come and call. Then there was silence for a little while, and they went through their figure dancing.

“I don’t at all know yet when we are to be married,” said Lily, as soon as they were again standing together.

“In the spring, perhaps,” suggested Eames. He had an unconscious desire that it might be postponed to some Greek kalends, and yet he did not wish to injure Lily.

“The reason I mention it is this, that we should be so very glad if you could be here. We all love you so much, and I should so like to have you here on that day.”

Why is it that girls so constantly do this,—so frequently ask men who have loved them to be present at their marriages with other men? There is no triumph in it. It is done in sheer kindness and affection. They intend to offer something which shall soften and not aggravate the sorrow that they have caused. “You can’t marry me yourself,” the lady seems to say. “But the next greatest blessing which I can offer you shall be yours;—you shall see me married to somebody else.” I fully appreciate the intention, but in honest truth, I doubt the eligibility of the proffered entertainment.

On the present occasion John Eames seemed to be of this opinion, for he did not at once accept the invitation.

“I would do anything to oblige you,” said he gruffly; “almost anything.”

“No; not that. I could not do that.” Then he went off upon his figure, and when they were next both standing together, they remained silent till their turn for dancing had again come. Why was it, that after that night Lily thought more of John Eames than ever she had thought before;—felt for him, I mean, a higher respect, as for a man who had a will of his own?

And in that quadrille Crofts and Bell had been dancing together, and they also had been talking of Lily’s marriage. “A man may undergo what he likes for himself,” he had said, “but he has no right to make a woman undergo poverty.”

“That which is no suffering for a man,—which no man should think of for himself,—will make a hell on earth for a woman.”

“I suppose it would,” said Bell, answering him without a sign of feeling in her face or voice. But she took in every word that he spoke, and disputed their truth inwardly with all the strength of her heart and mind, and with the very vehemence of her soul. “As if a woman cannot bear more than a man!” she said to herself, as she walked the length of the room alone, when she had got herself free from the doctor’s arm.

Chapter X.
Mrs Lupex and Amelia Roper

I should simply mislead a confiding reader if I were to tell him that Mrs Lupex was an amiable woman. Perhaps the fact that she was not amiable is the one great fault that should be laid to her charge; but that fault had spread itself so widely, and had cropped forth in so many different places of her life, like a strong rank plant that will show itself all over a garden, that it may almost be said that it made her odious in every branch of life, and detestable alike to those who knew her little and to those who knew her much. If a searcher could have got at the inside spirit of the woman, that searcher would have found that she wished to go right,—that she did make, or at any rate promise to herself that she would make, certain struggles to attain decency and propriety. But it was so natural to her to torment those whose misfortune brought them near to her, and especially that wretched man who in an evil day had taken her to his bosom as his wife, that decency fled from her, and propriety would not live in her quarters.

Mrs Lupex was, as I have already described her, a woman not without some feminine attraction in the eyes of those who like morning negligence and evening finery, and do not object to a long nose somewhat on one side. She was clever in her way, and could say smart things. She could flatter also, though her very flattery had always in it something that was disagreeable. And she must have had some power of will, as otherwise her husband would have escaped from her before the days of which I am writing. Otherwise, also, she could hardly have obtained her footing and kept it in Mrs Roper’s drawing-room. For though the hundred pounds a year, either paid, or promised to be paid, was matter with Mrs Roper of vast consideration, nevertheless the first three months of Mrs Lupex’s sojourn in Burton Crescent was not over before the landlady of that house was most anxiously desirous of getting herself quit of her married boarders.

I shall perhaps best describe a little incident that had occurred in Burton Crescent during the absence of our friend Eames, and the manner in which things were going on in that locality, by giving at length two letters which Johnny received by post at Guestwick on the morning after Mrs Dale’s party. One was from his friend Cradell, and the other from the devoted Amelia. In this instance I will give that from the gentleman first, presuming that I shall best consult my reader’s wishes by keeping the greater delicacy till the last.

Income-tax Office, September 186––.

My dear Johnny,—

We have had a terrible affair in the Crescent; and I really hardly know how to tell you; and yet I must do it, for I want your advice. You know the sort of standing that I was on with Mrs Lupex, and perhaps you remember what we were saying on the platform at the station. I have, no doubt, been fond of her society, as I might be of that of any other friend. I knew, of course, that she was a fine woman; and if her husband chose to be jealous, I couldn’t help that. But I never intended anything wrong; and, if it was necessary, couldn’t I call you as a witness to prove it? I never spoke a word to her out of Mrs Roper’s drawing-room; and Miss Spruce, or Mrs Roper, or somebody has always been there. You know he drinks horribly sometimes, but I do not think he ever gets downright drunk. Well, he came home last night about nine o’clock after one of these bouts. From what Jemima says [Jemima was Mrs Roper’s parlourmaid] I believe he had been at it down at the theatre for three days. We hadn’t seen him since Tuesday. He went straight into the parlour and sent up Jemima to me, to say that he wanted to see me. Mrs Lupex was in the room and heard the girl summon me, and, jumping up, she declared that if there was going to be bloodshed she would leave the house. There was nobody else in the room but Miss Spruce, and she didn’t say a word, but took her candle and went upstairs. You must own it looked very uncomfortable. What was I to do with a drunken man down in the parlour? However, she seemed to think I ought to go. “If he comes up here,” said she, “I shall be the victim. You little know of what that man is capable, when his wrath has been inflamed by wine!” Now, I think you are aware that I am not likely to be very much afraid of any man; but why was I to be got into a row in such a way as this? I hadn’t done anything. And then, if there was to be a quarrel, and anything was to come of it, as she seemed to expect,—like bloodshed, I mean, or a fight, or if he were to knock me on the head with the poker, where should I be at my office? A man in a public office, as you and I are, can’t quarrel like anybody else. It was this that I felt so much at the moment. “Go down to him,” said she, “unless you wish to see me murdered at your feet.” Fisher says, that if what I say is true, they must have arranged it all between them. I don’t think that; for I do believe that she really is fond of me. And then everybody knows that they never do agree about anything. But she certainly did implore me to go down to him. Well, I went down; and, as I got to the bottom of the stairs, where I found Jemima, I heard him walking up and down the parlour. “Take care of yourself, Mr Cradell,” said the girl; and I could see by her face that she was in a terrible fright.

At that moment I happened to see my hat on the hall table, and it occurred to me that I ought to put myself into the hands of a friend. Of course, I was not afraid of that man in the dining-room; but should I have been justified in engaging in a struggle, perhaps for dear life, in Mrs Roper’s house? I was bound to think of her interests. So I took up my hat, and deliberately walked out of the front door. “Tell him,” said I to Jemima, “that I’m not at home.” And so I went away direct to Fisher’s, meaning to send him back to Lupex as my friend; but Fisher was at his chess-club.

As I thought there was no time to be lost on such an occasion as this, I went down to the club and called him out. You know what a cool fellow Fisher is. I don’t suppose anything would ever excite him. When I told him the story, he said that he would sleep upon it; and I had to walk up and down before the club while he finished his game. Fisher seemed to think that I might go back to Burton Crescent; but, of course I knew that that would be out of the question. So it ended in my going home and sleeping on his sofa, and sending for some of my things in the morning. I wanted him to get up and see Lupex before going to the office this morning. But he said it would be better to put it off, and so he will call upon him at the theatre immediately after office hours.

I want you to write to me at once saying what you know about the matter. I ask you, as I don’t want to lug in any of the other people at Roper’s. It is very uncomfortable, as I can’t exactly leave her at once because of last quarter’s money, otherwise I should cut and run; for the house is not the sort of place either for you or me. You may take my word for that, Master Johnny. And I could tell you another thing, too about A. R., only I don’t want to make mischief. But do you write immediately. And now I think of it, you had better write to Fisher, so that he can show your letter to Lupex,—just saying, that to the best of your belief there had never been anything between her and me but mere friendship; and that, of course, you, as my friend, must have known everything. Whether I shall go back to Roper’s tonight will depend on what Fisher says after the interview.

Goodbye, old fellow! I hope you are enjoying yourself, and that L. D. is quite well.

Your sincere friend,
Joseph Cradell.

John Eames read this letter over twice before he opened that from Amelia. He had never yet received a letter from Miss Roper; and felt very little of that ardour for its perusal which young men generally experience on the receipt of a first letter from a young lady. The memory of Amelia was at the present moment distasteful to him; and he would have thrown the letter unopened into the fire, had he not felt it might be dangerous to do so. As regarded his friend Cradell, he could not but feel ashamed of him,—ashamed of him, not for running away from Mr Lupex, but for excusing his escape on false pretences.

And then, at last, he opened the letter from Amelia. “Dearest John,” it began; and as he read the words, he crumpled the paper up between his fingers. It was written in a fair female hand, with sharp points instead of curves to the letters, but still very legible, and looking as though there were a decided purport in every word of it.

Dearest John,

It feels so strange to me to write to you in such language as this. And yet you are dearest, and have I not a right to call you so? And are you not my own, and am not I yours? [Again he crunched the paper up in his hand, and, as he did so, he muttered words which I need not repeat at length. But still he went on with his letter.] I know that we understand each other perfectly, and when that is the case, heart should be allowed to speak openly to heart. Those are my feelings, and I believe that you will find them reciprocal in your own bosom. Is it not sweet to be loved? I find it so. And, dearest John, let me assure you, with open candour, that there is no room for jealousy in this breast with regard to you. I have too much confidence for that, I can assure you, both in your honour and in my own—I would say charms, only you would call me vain. You must not suppose that I meant what I said about L. D. Of course, you will be glad to see the friends of your childhood; and it would be far from your Amelia’s heart to begrudge you such delightful pleasure. Your friends will, I hope, some day be my friends. [Another crunch.] And if there be any one among them, any real L. D. whom you have specially liked, I will receive her to my heart, specially also. [This assurance on the part of his Amelia was too much for him, and he threw the letter from him, thinking whence he might get relief—whether from suicide or from the colonies; but presently he took it up again, and drained the bitter cup to the bottom.] And if I seemed petulant to you before you went away, you must forgive your own Amelia. I had nothing before me but misery for the month of your absence. There is no one here congenial to my feelings,—of course not. And you would not wish me to be happy in your absence,—would you? I can assure you, let your wishes he what they may, I never can be happy again unless you are with me. Write to me one little line, and tell me that you are grateful to me for my devotion.

And now, I must tell you that we have had a sad affair in the house; and I do not think that your friend Mr Cradell has behaved at all well. You remember how he has been always going on with Mrs Lupex. Mother was quite unhappy about it, though she didn’t like to say anything. Of course, when a lady’s name is concerned, it is particular. Bur Lupex has become dreadful jealous during the last week, and we all knew that something was coming. She is an artful woman, but I don’t think she meant anything bad,—only to drive her husband to desperation. He came here yesterday in one of his tantrums, and wanted to see Cradell; but he got frightened, and took his hat and went off. Now, that wasn’t quite right. If he was innocent, why didn’t he stand his ground and explain the mistake? As mother says, it gives the house such a name. Lupex swore last night that he’d be off to the Income-tax Office this morning, and have Cradell out before the commissioners, and clerks, and everybody. If he does that, it will get into the papers, and all London will be full of it. She would like it. I know; for all she cares for is to be talked about; but only think what it will be for mother’s house. I wish you were here; for your high prudence and courage would set everything right at once,—at least, I think so.

I shall count the minutes till I get an answer to this, and shall envy the postman who will have your letter before it will reach me. Do write at once. If I do not hear by Monday morning I shall think that something is the matter. Even though you are among your dear old friends, surely you can find a moment to write to your own Amelia.

Mother is very unhappy about this affair of the Lupexes. She says that if you were here to advise her she should not mind it so much. It is very hard upon her, for she does strive to make the house respectable and comfortable for everybody. I would send my duty and love to your dear mamma, if I only knew her, as I hope I shall do one day, and to your sister, and to L. D. also, if you like to tell her how we are situated together. So, now, no more from your

Always affectionate sweetheart,
Amelia Roper.

Poor Eames did not feel the least gratified by any part of this fond letter; but the last paragraph of it was the worst. Was it to be endured by him that this woman should send her love to his mother and to his sister, and even to Lily Dale! He felt that there was a pollution in the very mention of Lily’s name by such an one as Amelia Roper. And yet Amelia Roper was, as she had assured him,—his own. Much as he disliked her at the present moment, he did believe that he was—her own. He did feel that she had obtained a certain property in him, and that his destiny in life would tie him to her. He had said very few words of love to her at any time,—very few, at least, that were themselves of any moment; but among those few there had undoubtedly been one or two in which he had told her that he loved her. And he had written to her that fatal note! Upon the whole, would it not be as well for him to go out to the great reservoir behind Guestwick, by which the Hamersham Canal was fed with its waters, and put an end to his miserable existence?

On that same day he did write a letter to Fisher, and he wrote also to Cradell. As to those letters he felt no difficulty. To Fisher he declared his belief that Cradell was innocent as he was himself as regarded Mrs Lupex. “I don’t think he is the sort of man to make up to a married woman,” he said, somewhat to Cradell’s displeasure, when the letter reached the Income-tax Office; for that gentleman was not averse to the reputation for success in love which the little adventure was, as he thought, calculated to give him among his brother clerks. At the first bursting of the shell, when that desperately jealous man was raging in the parlour, incensed by the fumes both of wine and love, Cradell had felt that the affair was disagreeably painful. But on the morning of the third day,—for he had passed two nights on his friend Fisher’s sofa,—he had begun to be somewhat proud of it, and did not dislike to hear Mrs Lupex’s name in the mouths of the other clerks. When, therefore, Fisher read to him the letter from Guestwick, he hardly was pleased with his friend’s tone. “Ha, ha, ha,” said he, laughing. “That’s just what I wanted him to say. Make up to a married woman, indeed. No; I’m the last man in London to do that sort of thing.”

“Upon my word, Caudle, I think you are,” said Fisher; “the very last man.”

And then poor Cradell was not happy. On that afternoon he boldly went to Burton Crescent, and ate his dinner there. Neither Mr nor Mrs Lupex were to be seen, nor were their names mentioned to him by Mrs Roper. In the course of the evening he did pluck up courage to ask Miss Spruce where they were; but that ancient lady merely shook her head solemnly, and declared that she knew nothing about such goings on;—no, not she.

But what was John Eames to do as to that letter from Amelia Roper? He felt that any answer to it would be very dangerous, and yet that he could not safely leave it unanswered. He walked off by himself across Guestwick Common, and through the woods of Guestwick Manor, up by the big avenue of elms in Lord De Guest’s park, trying to resolve how he might rescue himself from this scrape. Here, over the same ground, he had wandered scores of times in his earlier years, when he knew nothing beyond the innocence of his country home, thinking of Lily Dale, and swearing to himself that she should be his wife. Here he had strung together his rhymes, and fed his ambition with high hopes, building gorgeous castles in the air, in all of which Lilian reigned as a queen; and though in those days he had known himself to be awkward, poor, uncared for by any in the world except his mother and his sister, yet he had been happy in his hopes,—happy in his hopes, even though he had never taught himself really to believe that they would be realised. But now there was nothing in his hopes or thoughts to make him happy. Everything was black, and wretched, and ruinous. What would it matter, after all, even if he should marry Amelia Roper, seeing that Lily was to be given to another? But then the idea of Amelia as he had seen her that night through the chink in the door came upon his memory, and he confessed to himself that life with such a wife as that would be a living death.

At one moment he thought that he would tell his mother everything, and leave her to write an answer to Amelia’s letter. Should the worst come to the worst, the Ropers could not absolutely destroy him. That they could bring an action against him, and have him locked up for a term of years, and dismissed from his office, and exposed in all the newspapers, he seemed to know. That might all, however, be endured, if only the gauntlet could be thrown down for him by some one else. The one thing which he felt that he could not do was, to write to a girl whom he had professed to love, and tell her that he did not love her. He knew that he could not himself form such words upon the paper; nor, as he was well aware, could he himself find the courage to tell her to her face that he had changed his mind. He knew that he must become the victim of his Amelia, unless he could find some friendly knight to do battle in his favour; and then again he thought of his mother.

But when he returned home he was as far as ever from any resolve to tell her how he was situated. I may say that his walk had done him no good, and that he had not made up his mind to anything. He had been building those pernicious castles in the air during more than half the time; not castles in the building of which he could make himself happy, as he had done in the old days, but black castles, with cruel dungeons, into which hardly a ray of light could find its way. In all these edifices his imagination pictured to him Lily as the wife of Mr Crosbie. He accepted that as a fact, and then went to work in his misery, making her as wretched as himself, through the misconduct and harshness of her husband. He tried to think, and to resolve what he would do; but there is no task so hard as that of thinking, when the mind has an objection to the matter brought before it. The mind, under such circumstances, is like a horse that is brought to the water, but refuses to drink. So Johnny returned to his home, still doubting whether or no he would answer Amelia’s letter. And if he did not answer it, how would he conduct himself on his return to Burton Crescent?

I need hardly say that Miss Roper, in writing her letter, had been aware of all this, and that Johnny’s position had been carefully prepared for him by his affectionate sweetheart.

Chapter XI.
Social Life

Mr and Mrs Lupex had eaten a sweetbread together in much connubial bliss on that day which had seen Cradell returning to Mrs Roper’s hospitable board. They had together eaten a sweetbread, with some other delicacies of the season, in the neighbourhood of the theatre, and had washed down all unkindness with bitter beer and brandy-and-water. But of this reconciliation Cradell had not heard; and when he saw them come together into the drawing-room, a few minutes after the question he had addressed to Miss Spruce, he was certainly surprised.

Lupex was not an illnatured man, nor one naturally savage by disposition. He was a man fond of sweetbread and little dinners, and one to whom hot brandy-and-water was too dear. Had the wife of his bosom been a good helpmate to him, he might have gone through the world, if not respectably, at any rate without open disgrace. But she was a woman who left a man no solace except that to be found in brandy-and-water. For eight years they had been man and wife; and sometimes—I grieve to say it—he had been driven almost to hope that she would commit a married woman’s last sin, and leave him. In his misery, any mode of escape would have been welcome to him. Had his energy been sufficient he would have taken his scene-painting capabilities off to Australia,—or to the farthest shifting of scenes known on the world’s stage. But he was an easy, listless, self-indulgent man; and at any moment, let his misery be as keen as might be, a little dinner, a few soft words, and a glass of brandy-and-water would bring him round. The second glass would make him the fondest husband living; but the third would restore to him the memory of all his wrongs, and give him courage against his wife or all the world,—even to the detriment of the furniture around him, should a stray poker chance to meet his hand. All these peculiarities of his character were not, however, known to Cradell; and when our friend saw him enter the drawing-room with his wife on his arm, he was astonished.

“Mr Cradell, your hand,” said Lupex, who had advanced as far as the second glass of brandy-and-water, but had not been allowed to go beyond it. “There has been a misunderstanding between us; let it be forgotten.”

“Mr Cradell, if I know him,” said the lady, “is too much the gentleman to bear any anger when a gentleman has offered him his hand.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” said Cradell, “I’m quite—indeed, I’m delighted to find there’s nothing wrong after all.” And then he shook hands with both of them; whereupon Miss Spruce got up, curtseyed low, and also shook hands with the husband and wife.

“You’re not a married man, Mr Cradell,” said Lupex, “and therefore you cannot understand the workings of a husband’s heart. There have been moments when my regard for that woman has been too much for me.”

“Now, Lupex, don’t,” said she, playfully tapping him with an old parasol which she still held.

“And I do not hesitate to say that my regard for her was too much for me on that night when I sent for you to the dining-room.”

“One word,” said Lupex, waving his hand. “Mr Cradell, I greatly rejoice that you did not obey my summons on that night. Had you done so,—I confess it now,—had you done so, blood would have been the consequence. I was mistaken. I acknowledge my mistake;—but blood would have been the consequence.”

“Miss Spruce,” continued Lupex, “there are moments when the heart becomes too strong for a man.”

“Yes; that will do. But I think it right to tell Mr Cradell that I am glad he did not come to me. Your friend, Mr Cradell, did me the honour of calling on me at the theatre yesterday, at half-past four; but I was in the slings then and could not very well come down to him. I shall be happy to see you both any day at five, and to bury all unkindness with a chop and glass at the Pot and Poker, in Bow Street.”

“And Mrs Lupex will join us. There’s a delightful little snuggery upstairs at the Pot and Poker; and if Miss Spruce will condescend to—”

“No—no—no,” said Lupex, “I deny that. Come, Cradell, what do you say?—just a snug little dinner for four, you know.”

It was, no doubt, pleasant to see Mr Lupex in his present mood,—much pleasanter than in that other mood of which blood would have been the consequence: but pleasant as he now was, it was, nevertheless, apparent that he was not quite sober. Cradell, therefore, did not settle the day for the little dinner; but merely remarked that he should be very happy at some future day.

“And now, Lupex, suppose you get off to bed,” said his wife. “You’ve had a very trying day, you know.”

“I shall come presently. Now don’t be making a fool of yourself, but get yourself off. Come—” and she stood close up against the open door, waiting for him to pass.

“I rather think I shall remain where I am, and have a glass of something hot,” said he.

“Lupex, do you want to aggravate me again?” said the lady, and she looked at him with a glance of her eye which he thoroughly understood. He was not in a humour for fighting, nor was he at present desirous of blood; so he resolved to go. But as he went he prepared himself for new battles. “I shall do something desperate, I am sure; I know I shall,” he said, as he pulled off his boots.

“Oh, Mr Cradell,” said Mrs Lupex as soon as she had closed the door behind her retreating husband, “how am I ever to look you in the face again after the events of these last memorable days?” And then she seated herself on the sofa, and hid her face in a cambric handkerchief.

“As for that,” said Cradell, “what does it signify,—among friends like us, you know?”

“But that it should be known at your office,—as of course it is, because of the gentleman that went down to him at the theatre,—I don’t think I shall ever survive it.”

“I’m not finding fault, Mr Cradell. I know very well that in my melancholy position I have no right to find fault, and I don’t pretend to understand gentlemen’s feelings towards each other. But to have had my name mentioned up with yours in that way is— Oh! Mr Cradell, I don’t know how I’m ever to look you in the face again.” And again she buried hers in her pockethandkerchief.

“Handsome is as handsome does,” said Miss Spruce; and there was that in her tone of voice which seemed to convey much hidden meaning.

“Exactly so, Miss Spruce,” said Mrs Lupex; “and that’s my only comfort at the present moment. Mr Cradell is a gentleman who would scorn to take advantage;—I’m quite sure of that.” And then she did contrive to look at him over the edge of the hand which held the handkerchief.

“That I wouldn’t, I’m sure,” said Cradell. “That is to say—” And then he paused. He did not wish to get into a scrape about Mrs Lupex. He was by no means anxious to encounter her husband in one of his fits of jealousy. But he did like the idea of being talked of as the admirer of a married woman, and he did like the brightness of the lady’s eyes. When the unfortunate moth in his semi-blindness whisks himself and his wings within the flame of the candle, and finds himself mutilated and tortured, he even then will not take the lesson, but returns again and again till he is destroyed. Such a moth was poor Cradell. There was no warmth to be got by him from that flame. There was no beauty in the light,—not even the false brilliance of unhallowed love. Injury might come to him,—a pernicious clipping of the wings, which might destroy all power of future flight; injury, and not improbably destruction, if he should persevere. But one may say that no single hour of happiness could accrue to him from his intimacy with Mrs Lupex. He felt for her no love. He was afraid of her, and, in many respects, disliked her. But to him, in his mothlike weakness, ignorance, and blindness, it seemed to be a great thing that he should be allowed to fly near the candle. Oh! my friends, if you will but think of it, how many of you have been moths, and are now going about ungracefully with wings more or less burnt off, and with bodies sadly scorched!

But before Mr Cradell could make up his mind whether or no he would take advantage of the present opportunity for another dip into the flame of the candle,—in regard to which proceeding, however, he could not but feel that the presence of Miss Spruce was objectionable,—the door of the room was opened, and Amelia Roper joined the party.

“Oh, yes; I see Miss Spruce,” said Amelia. “I was not hinting anything, I can assure you.”

“Only I didn’t know that you two were quite— That is, when last I heard about it, I fancied— But if the quarrel’s made up, there’s nobody more rejoiced than I am.”

“Mr Lupex is satisfied,” said Mrs Lupex; “and let me tell you, my dear, seeing that you are expecting to get married yourself—”

“Mrs Lupex, I’m not expecting to get married,—not particularly, by any means.”

“Oh, I thought you were. And let me tell you, that when you’ve got a husband of your own, you won’t find it so easy to keep everything straight. That’s the worst of these lodgings; if there is any little thing, everybody knows it. Don’t they, Miss Spruce?”

“Lodgings is so much more comfortable than housekeeping,” said Miss Spruce, who lived rather in fear of her relatives, the Ropers.

“Everybody knows it; does he?” said Amelia. “Why, if a gentleman will come home at night tipsy and threaten to murder another gentleman in the same house; and if a lady—” And then Amelia paused, for she knew that the line-of-battle ship which she was preparing to encounter had within her much power of fighting.

“Well, miss,” said Mrs Lupex, getting on her feet, “and what of the lady?”

Now we may say that the battle had begun, and that the two ships were pledged by the general laws of courage and naval warfare to maintain the contest till one of them should be absolutely disabled, if not blown up or sunk. And at this moment it might be difficult for a bystander to say with which of the combatants rested the better chance of permanent success. Mrs Lupex had doubtless on her side more matured power, a habit of fighting which had given her infinite skill, a courage which deadened her to the feeling of all wounds while the heat of the battle should last, and a recklessness which made her almost indifferent whether she sank or swam. But then Amelia carried the greater guns, and was able to pour in heavier metal than her enemy could use; and she, too, swam in her own waters. Should they absolutely come to grappling and boarding, Amelia would no doubt have the best of it; but Mrs Lupex would probably be too crafty to permit such a proceeding as that. She was, however, ready for the occasion, and greedy for the fight.

“And what of the lady?” said she, in a tone of voice that admitted of no pacific rejoinder.

“A lady, if she is a lady,” said Amelia, “will know how to behave herself.”

“And you’re going to teach me, are you, Miss Roper? I’m sure I’m ever so much obliged to you. It’s Manchester manners, I suppose, that you prefer?”

“I prefer honest manners, Mrs Lupex, and decent manners, and manners that won’t shock a whole house full of people; and I don’t care whether they come from Manchester or London.”

“I don’t care whether they are milliner’s manners or theatrical, Mrs Lupex, as long as they’re not downright bad manners—as yours are, Mrs Lupex. And now you’ve got it. What are you going on for in this way with that young man, till you’ll drive your husband into a madhouse with drink and jealousy?”

“Don’t mind her, Mr Cradell,” said Mrs Lupex; “she’s not worthy for you to speak to. And as to that poor fellow Eames, if you’ve any friendship for him, you’ll let him know what she is. My dear, how’s Mr Juniper, of Grogram’s house, at Salford? I know all about you, and so shall John Eames, too—poor unfortunate fool of a fellow! Telling me of drink and jealousy, indeed!”

“Yes, telling you! And now you’ve mentioned Mr Juniper’s name, Mr Eames, and Mr Cradell too, may know the whole of it. There’s been nothing about Mr Juniper that I’m ashamed of.”

“But let me tell you this, Mrs Lupex, you’re not going to destroy the respectability of this house by your goings on.”

“Then pay your bill, and walk out of it,” said Amelia, waving her hand towards the door. “I’ll undertake to say there shan’t be any notice required. Only you pay mother what you owe, and you’re free to go at once.”

“I shall go just when I please, and not one hour before. Who are you, you gipsy, to speak to me in this way?”

“And as for going, go you shall, if we have to call in the police to make you.”

Amelia, as at this period of the fight she stood fronting her foe with her arms akimbo, certainly seemed to have the best of the battle. But the bitterness of Mrs Lupex’s tongue had hardly yet produced its greatest results. I am inclined to think that the married lady would have silenced her who was single, had the fight been allowed to rage,—always presuming that no resort to grappling-irons took place. But at this moment Mrs Roper entered the room, accompanied by her son, and both the combatants for a moment retreated.

“Amelia, what’s all this?” said Mrs Roper, trying to assume a look of agonised amazement.

“And Mrs Lupex will answer,” said that lady. “Your daughter has come in here, and attacked me—in such language—before Mr Cradell too—”

“Hold your tongue,” said her brother. “What she owes is no affair of yours.”

“But it’s an affair of mine, when I’m insulted by such a creature as that.”

“Creature!” said Mrs Lupex. “I’d like to know which is most like a creature! But I’ll tell you what it is, Amelia Roper—” Here, however, her eloquence was stopped, for Amelia had disappeared through the door, having been pushed out of the room by her brother. Whereupon Mrs Lupex, having found a sofa convenient for the service, betook herself to hysterics. There for the moment we will leave her, hoping that poor Mrs Roper was not kept late out of her bed.

“What a deuce of a mess Eames will make of it if he marries that girl!” Such was Cradell’s reflection as he betook himself to his own room. But of his own part in the night’s transactions he was rather proud than otherwise, feeling that the married lady’s regard for him had been the cause of the battle which had raged. So, likewise, did Paris derive much gratification from the ten years’ siege of Troy.

Chapter XII.
Lilian Dale Becomes a Butterfly

And now we will go back to Allington. The same morning that brought to John Eames the two letters which were given in the last chapter but one, brought to the Great House, among others, the following epistle for Adolphus Crosbie. It was from a countess, and was written on pink paper, beautifully creamlaid and scented, ornamented with a coronet and certain singularly-entwined initials. Altogether, the letter was very fashionable and attractive, and Adolphus Crosbie was by no means sorry to receive it.

Courcy Castle, September 186––.

My dear Mr Crosbie,

We have heard of you from the Gazebees, who have come down to us, and who tell us that you are rusticating at a charming little village, in which, among other attractions, there are wood nymphs and water nymphs, to whom much of your time is devoted. As this is just the thing for your taste, I would not for worlds disturb you; but if you should ever tear yourself away from the groves and fountains of Allington, we shall be delighted to welcome you here, though you will find us very unromantic after your late Elysium.

Lady Dumbello is coming to us, who I know is a favourite of yours. Or is it the other way, and are you a favourite of hers? I did ask Lady Hartletop, but she cannot get away from the poor marquis, who is, you know, so very infirm. The duke isn’t at Gatherum at present, but, of course, I don’t mean that that has anything to do with dear Lady Hartletop coming to us. I believe we shall have the house full, and shall not want for nymphs either, though I fear they will not be of the wood and water kind. Margaretta and Alexandrina particularly want you to come, as they say you are so clever at making a houseful of people go off well. If you can give us a week before you go back to manage the affairs of the nation, pray do.

Yours very sincerely,
Rosina de Courcy.

The Countess de Courcy was a very old friend of Mr Crosbie’s; that is to say, as old friends go in the world in which he had been living. He had known her for the last six or seven years, and had been in the habit of going to all her London balls, and dancing with her daughters everywhere, in a most goodnatured and affable way. He had been intimate, from old family relations, with Mr Mortimer Gazebee, who, though only an attorney of the more distinguished kind, had married the countess’s eldest daughter, and now sat in Parliament for the city of Barchester, near to which Courcy Castle was situated. And, to tell the truth honestly at once, Mr Crosbie had been on terms of great friendship with Lady de Courcy’s daughters, the Ladies Margaretta and Alexandrina—perhaps especially so with the latter, though I would not have my readers suppose by my saying so that anything more tender than friendship had ever existed between them.

Crosbie said nothing about the letter on that morning; but during the day, or, perhaps, as he thought over the matter in bed, he made up his mind that he would accept Lady de Courcy’s invitation. It was not only that he would be glad to see the Gazebees, or glad to stay in the same house with that great master in the high art of fashionable life, Lady Dumbello, or glad to renew his friendship with the Ladies Margaretta and Alexandrina. Had he felt that the circumstances of his engagement with Lily made it expedient for him to stay with her till the end of his holidays, he could have thrown over the de Courcys without a struggle. But he told himself that it would be well for him now to tear himself away from Lily; or perhaps he said that it would be well for Lily that he should be torn away. He must not teach her to think that they were to live only in the sunlight of each other’s eyes during those months, or perhaps years, which might elapse before their engagement could be carried out. Nor must he allow her to suppose that either he or she were to depend solely upon the other for the amusements and employments of life. In this way he argued the matter very sensibly within his own mind, and resolved, without much difficulty, that he would go to Courcy Castle, and bask for a week in the sunlight of the fashion which would be collected there. The quiet humdrum of his own fireside would come upon him soon enough!

“I think I shall leave you on Wednesday, sir,” Crosbie said to the squire at breakfast on Sunday morning.

“Leave us on Wednesday!” said the squire, who had an old-fashioned idea that people who were engaged to marry each other should remain together as long as circumstances could be made to admit of their doing so. “Nothing wrong, is there?”

“Oh, dear, no! But everything must come to an end some day; and as I must make one or two short visits before I get back to town, I might as well go on Wednesday. Indeed, I have made it as late as I possibly could.”

“Well, as it happens, only into the next county,—to Courcy Castle.” And then there was nothing more said about the matter at that breakfast-table.

It had become their habit to meet together on the Sunday mornings before church, on the lawn belonging to the Small House, and on this day the three gentlemen walked down together, and found Lily and Bell already waiting for them. They generally had some few minutes to spare on those occasions before Mrs Dale summoned them to pass through the house to church, and such was the case at present. The squire at these times would stand in the middle of the grass-plot, surveying his grounds, and taking stock of the shrubs, and flowers, and fruit-trees round him; for he never forgot that it was all his own, and would thus use this opportunity, as he seldom came down to see the spot on other days. Mrs Dale, as she would see him from her own window while she was tying on her bonnet, would feel that she knew what was passing through his mind, and would regret that circumstances had forced her to be beholden to him for such assistance. But, in truth, she did not know all that he thought at such times. “It is mine,” he would say to himself, as he looked around on the pleasant place. “But it is well for me that they should enjoy it. She is my brother’s widow, and she is welcome;—very welcome.” I think that if those two persons had known more than they did of each other’s hearts and minds they might have loved each other better.

And then Crosbie told Lily of his intention. “On Wednesday!” she said, turning almost pale with emotion as she heard this news. He had told her abruptly, not thinking, probably, that such tidings would affect her so strongly.

“Well, yes. I have written to Lady de Courcy and said Wednesday. It wouldn’t do for me exactly to drop everybody, and perhaps—”

“Oh, no! And, Adolphus, you don’t suppose I begrudge your going. Only it does seem so sudden; does it not?”

“Yes; you’ve been very good. When I think of it, what a six weeks it has been! I wonder whether the difference seems to you as great as it does to me. I’ve left off being a grub, and begun to be a butterfly.”

“No; not in that sense. But I meant that my real position in the world,—that for which I would fain hope that I was created,—opened to me only when I knew you and knew that you loved me. But mamma is calling us, and we must go through to church. Going on Wednesday! There are only three days more, then!”

“Yes, just three days,” he said, as he took her on his arm and passed through the house on to the road.

“And when are we to see you again?” she asked, as they reached the churchyard.

“Ah, who is to say that yet? We must ask the Chairman of Committees when he will let me go again.” Then there was nothing more said, and they all followed the squire through the little porch and up to the big family-pew in which they all sat. Here the squire took his place in one special corner which he had occupied ever since his father’s death, and from which he read the responses loudly and plainly,—so loudly and plainly, that the parish clerk could by no means equal him, though with tremulous voice he still made the attempt. “T’ squire’d like to be squire, and parson, and clerk, and everything; so a would,” the poor clerk would say, when complaining of the ill-usage which he suffered.

If Lily’s prayers were interrupted by her new sorrow, I think that her fault in that respect would be forgiven. Of course she had known that Crosbie was not going to remain at Allington much longer. She knew quite as well as he did the exact day on which his leave of absence came to its end, and the hour at which it behoved him to walk into his room at the General Committee Office. She had taught herself to think that he would remain with them up to the end of his vacation, and now she felt as a schoolboy would feel who was told suddenly, a day or two before the time, that the last week of his holidays was to be taken from him. The grievance would have been slight had she known it from the first; but what schoolboy could stand such a shock, when the loss amounted to two-thirds of his remaining wealth? Lily did not blame her lover. She did not even think that he ought to stay. She would not allow herself to suppose that he could propose anything that was unkind. But she felt her loss, and more than once, as she knelt at her prayers, she wiped a hidden tear from her eyes.

Crosbie also was thinking of his departure more than he should have done during Mr Boyce’s sermon. “It’s easy listening to him,” Mrs Hearn used to say of her husband’s successor. “It don’t give one much trouble following him into his arguments.” Mr Crosbie perhaps found the difficulty greater than did Mrs Hearn, and would have devoted his mind more perfectly to the discourse had the argument been deeper. It is very hard, that necessity of listening to a man who says nothing. On this occasion Crosbie ignored the necessity altogether, and gave up his mind to the consideration of what it might be expedient that he should say to Lily before he went. He remembered well those few words which he had spoken in the first ardour of his love, pleading that an early day might be fixed for their marriage. And he remembered, also, how prettily Lily had yielded to him. “Only do not let it be too soon,” she had said. Now he must unsay what he had then said; he must plead against his own pleadings, and explain to her that he desired to postpone the marriage rather than to hasten it,—a task which, I presume, must always be an unpleasant one for any man engaged to be married. “I might as well do it at once,” he said to himself, as he bobbed his head forward into his hands by way of returning thanks for the termination of Mr Boyce’s sermon.

As he had only three days left, it was certainly as well that he should do this at once. Seeing that Lily had no fortune, she could not in justice complain of a prolonged engagement. That was the argument which he used in his own mind. But he as often told himself that she would have very great ground of complaint if she were left for a day unnecessarily in doubt as to this matter. Why had he rashly spoken those hasty words to her in his love, betraying himself into all manner of scrapes, as a schoolboy might do, or such a one as Johnny Eames? What an ass he had been not to have remembered himself and to have been collected,—not to have bethought himself on the occasion of all that might be due to Adolphus Crosbie! And then the idea came upon him whether he had not altogether made himself an ass in this matter. And as he gave his arm to Lily outside the church-door, he shrugged his shoulders while making that reflection. “It is too late now,” he said to himself; and than turned round and made some sweet little loving speech to her. Adolphus Crosbie was a clever man; and he meant also to be a true man,—if only the temptations to falsehood might not be too great for him.

Walk in the fields with him! Of course she would. There were only three days left, and would she not give up to him every moment of her time, if he would accept of all her moments? And then they lunched at the Small House, Mrs Dale having promised to join the dinner-party at the squire’s table. The squire did not eat any lunch, excusing himself on the plea that lunch in itself was a bad thing. “He can eat lunch at his own house,” Mrs Dale afterwards said to Bell. “And I’ve often seen him take a glass of sherry.” While thinking of this, Mrs Dale made her own dinner. If her brother-in-law would not eat at her board, neither would she eat at his.

And then in a few minutes Lily had on her hat, in place of that decorous, churchgoing bonnet which Crosbie was wont to abuse with a lover’s privilege, feeling well assured that he might say what he liked of the bonnet as long as he would praise the hat. “Only three days,” she said, as she walked down with him across the lawn at a quick pace. But she said it in a voice which made no complaint,—which seemed to say simply this,—that as the good time was to be so short, they must make the most of it. And what compliment could be paid to a man so sweet as that? What flattery could be more gratifying? All my earthly heaven is with you; and now, for the delight of these immediately present months or so, there are left to me but three days of this heaven! Come, then; I will make the most of what happiness is given to me. Crosbie felt it all as she felt it, and recognised the extent of the debt he owed her. “I’ll come down to them for a day at Christmas, though it be only for a day,” he said to himself. Then he reflected that as such was his intention, it might be well for him to open his present conversation with a promise to that effect.

“Yes, Lily; there are only three days left now. But I wonder whether—I suppose you’ll all be at home at Christmas?”

“At home at Christmas?—of course we shall be at home. You don’t mean to say you’ll come to us!”

“Oh! that will make such a difference. Let me see. That will only be three months. And to have you here on Christmas Day! I would sooner have you then than on any other day in the year.”

“It will only be for one day, Lily. I shall come to dinner on Christmas Eve, and must go away the day after.”

“Of course we can. So we could now. Only when you came, you know—” Then she looked up into his face and smiled.

“When I came, I was the squire’s friend and your cousin’s rather than yours. But that’s all changed now.”

“Yes; you’re my friend now,—mine specially. I’m to be now and always your own special, dearest friend;—eh, Adolphus?” And thus she exacted from him the repetition of the promise which he had so often given her.

By this time they had passed through the grounds of the Great House and were in the fields. “Lily,” said he, speaking rather suddenly, and making her feel by his manner that something of importance was to be said; “I want to say a few words to you about,—business.” And he gave a little laugh as he spoke the last word, making her fully understand that he was not quite at his ease.

“Of course I’ll listen. And, Adolphus, pray don’t be afraid about me. What I mean is, don’t think that I can’t bear cares and troubles. I can bear anything as long as you love me. I say that because I’m afraid I seemed to complain about your going. I didn’t mean to.”

“I never thought you complained, dearest. Nothing can be better than you are at all times and in every way. A man would be very hard to please if you didn’t please him.”

“You do please me in everything. Dear Lily, I think I found an angel when I found you. But now about this business. Perhaps I’d better tell you everything.”

“But then you mustn’t misunderstand me. And if I talk about money, you mustn’t suppose that it has anything to do with my love for you.”

“What I mean to say is this, that if I seem to be anxious about money, you must not suppose that that anxiety bears any reference whatever to my affection for you. I should love you just the same, and look forward just as much to my happiness in marrying you, whether you were rich or poor. You understand that?”

She did not quite understand him; but she merely pressed his arm, so as to encourage him to go on. She presumed that he intended to tell her something as to their future mode of life,—something which he supposed it might not be pleasant for her to hear, and she was determined to show him that she would receive it pleasantly.

“You know,” said he, “how anxious I have been that our marriage should not be delayed. To me, of course, it must be everything now to call you my own as soon as possible.” In answer to which little declaration of love, she merely pressed his arm again, the subject being one on which she had not herself much to say.

“Of course I must be very anxious, but I find it not so easy as I expected.”

“You know what I said, Adolphus. I said that I thought we had better wait. I’m sure mamma thinks so. And if we can only see you now and then—”

“That will be a matter of course. But, as I was saying—Let me see. Yes,—all that waiting will be intolerable to me. It is such a bore for a man when he has made up his mind on such a matter as marriage, not to make the change at once, especially when he is going to take to himself such a little angel as you are,” and as he spoke these loving words, his arm was again put round her waist; “but—” and then he stopped. He wanted to make her understand that this change of intention on his part was caused by the unexpected misconduct of her uncle. He desired that she should know exactly how the matter stood; that he had been led to suppose that her uncle would give her some small fortune, that he had been disappointed, and had a right to feel the disappointment keenly; and that in consequence of this blow to his expectations, he must put off his marriage. But he wished her also to understand at the same time that this did not in the least mar his love for her; that he did not join her at all in her uncle’s fault. All this he was anxious to convey to her, but he did not know how to get it said in a manner that would not be offensive to her personally, and that should not appear to accuse himself of sordid motives. He had begun by declaring that he would tell her all; but sometimes it is not easy, that task of telling a person everything. There are things which will not get themselves told.

“You mean, dearest,” said she, “that you cannot afford to marry at once.”

Did any man in love ever yet find himself able to tell the lady whom he loved that he was very much disappointed on discovering that she had got no money? If so, his courage, I should say, was greater than his love. Crosbie found himself unable to do it, and thought himself cruelly used because of the difficulty. The delay to which he intended to subject her was occasioned, as he felt, by the squire, and not by himself. He was ready to do his part, if only the squire had been willing to do the part which properly belonged to him. The squire would not; and, therefore, neither could he,—not as yet. Justice demanded that all this should be understood; but when he came to the telling of it, he found that the story would not form itself properly. He must let the thing go, and bear the injustice, consoling himself as best he might by the reflection that he at least was behaving well in the matter.

“Will it not?” said he. “As regards myself, I own that I cannot bear the delay with so much indifference.”

“Nay, my love; but you should not misunderstand me,” she said, stopping and facing him on the path in which they were walking. “I suppose I ought to protest, according to the common rules, that I would rather wait. Young ladies are expected to say so. If you were pressing me to marry at once, I should say so, no doubt. But now, as it is, I will be more honest. I have only one wish in the world, and that is, to be your wife,—to be able to share everything with you. The sooner we can be together the better it will be,—at any rate, for me. There; will that satisfy you?”

“Yes, your own Lily. You shall have no cause to doubt me, dearest. But I do not expect that I am to have everything exactly as I want it. I say again, that I shall not be unhappy in waiting. How can I be unhappy while I feel certain of your love? I was disappointed just now when you said that you were going so soon; and I am afraid I showed it. But those little things are more unendurable than the big things.”

“But there are three more days, and I mean to enjoy them so much! And then you will write to me: and you will come at Christmas. And next year, when you have your holiday, you will come down to us again; will you not?”

“And so the time will go by till it suits you to come and take me. I shall not be unhappy.”

“Ah, men always are impatient. It is one of their privileges, I suppose. And I don’t think that a man ever has the same positive and complete satisfaction in knowing that he is loved, which a girl feels. You are my bird that I have shot with my own gun; and the assurance of my success is sufficient for my happiness.”

“I don’t know about can’t. I would let you up quick enough, if you wished it.”

How he made his loving assurance that he did not wish it, never would or could wish it, the reader will readily understand. And then he considered that he might as well leave all those money questions as they now stood. His real object had been to convince her that their joint circumstances did not admit of an immediate marriage; and as to that she completely understood him. Perhaps, during the next three days, some opportunity might arise for explaining the whole matter to Mrs Dale. At any rate, he had declared his own purpose honestly, and no one could complain of him.

On the following day they all rode over to Guestwick together,—the all consisting of the two girls, with Bernard and Crosbie. Their object was to pay two visits,—one to their very noble and highly exalted ally, the Lady Julia De Guest; and the other to their humbler and better known friend, Mrs Eames. As Guestwick Manor lay on their road into the town, they performed the grander ceremony the first. The present Earl De Guest, brother of that Lady Fanny who ran away with Major Dale, was an unmarried nobleman, who devoted himself chiefly to the breeding of cattle. And as he bred very good cattle, taking infinite satisfaction in the employment, devoting all his energies thereto, and abstaining from all prominently evil courses, it should be acknowledged that he was not a bad member of society. He was a thoroughgoing old Tory, whose proxy was always in the hand of the leader of his party; and who seldom himself went near the metropolis, unless called thither by some occasion of cattle-showing. He was a short, stumpy man, with red cheeks and a round face; who was usually to be seen till dinnertime dressed in a very old shooting coat, with breeches, gaiters, and very thick shoes. He lived generally out of doors, and was almost as great in the preserving of game as in the breeding of oxen. He knew every acre of his own estate, and every tree upon it, as thoroughly as a lady knows the ornaments in her drawing-room. There was no gap in a fence of which he did not remember the exact bearings, no path hither or thither as to which he could not tell the why and the wherefore. He had been in his earlier years a poor man as regarded his income,—very poor, seeing that he was an earl. But he was not at present by any means an impoverished man, having been taught a lesson by the miseries of his father and grandfather, and having learned to live within his means. Now, as he was going down the vale of years, men said that he was becoming rich, and that he had ready money to spend,—a position in which no Lord De Guest had found himself for many generations back. His father and grandfather had been known as spendthrifts; and now men said that this earl was a miser.

There was not much of nobility in his appearance; but they greatly mistook Lord De Guest who conceived that on that account his pride of place was not dear to his soul. His peerage dated back to the time of King John, and there were but three lords in England whose patents had been conferred before his own. He knew what privileges were due to him on behalf of his blood, and was not disposed to abate one jot of them. He was not loud in demanding them. As he went through the world he sent no trumpeters to the right or left, proclaiming that the Earl De Guest was coming. When he spread his board for his friends, which he did but on rare occasions, he entertained them simply with a mild, tedious, old-fashioned courtesy. We may say that, if properly treated, the earl never walked over anybody. But he could, if illtreated, be grandly indignant; and if attacked, could hold his own against all the world. He knew himself to be every inch an earl, pottering about after his oxen with his muddy gaiters and red cheeks, as much as though he were glittering with stars in courtly royal ceremonies among his peers at Westminster,—ay, more an earl than any of those who use their nobility for pageant purposes. Woe be to him who should mistake that old coat for a badge of rural degradation! Now and again some unlucky wight did make such a mistake, and had to do his penance very uncomfortably.

With the earl lived a maiden sister, the Lady Julia. Bernard Dale’s father had, in early life, run away with one sister, but no suitor had been fortunate enough to induce the Lady Julia to run with him. Therefore she still lived, in maiden blessedness, as mistress of Guestwick Manor; and as such had no mean opinion of the high position which destiny had called upon her to fill. She was a tedious, dull, virtuous old woman, who gave herself infinite credit for having remained all her days in the home of her youth, probably forgetting, in her present advanced years, that her temptations to leave it had not been strong or numerous. She generally spoke of her sister Fanny with some little contempt, as though that poor lady had degraded herself in marrying a younger brother. She was as proud of her own position as was the earl her brother, but her pride was maintained with more of outward show and less of inward nobility. It was hardly enough for her that the world should know that she was a De Guest, and therefore she had assumed little pompous ways and certain airs of condescension which did not make her popular with her neighbours.

The intercourse between Guestwick Manor and Allington was not very frequent or very cordial. Soon after the running away of the Lady Fanny, the two families had agreed to acknowledge their connection with each other, and to let it be known by the world that they were on friendly terms. Either that course was necessary to them, or the other course, of letting it be known that they were enemies. Friendship was the less troublesome, and therefore the two families called on each other from time to time, and gave each other dinners about once a year. The earl regarded the squire as a man who had deserted his politics, and had thereby forfeited the respect due to him as an hereditary land magnate; and the squire was wont to belittle the earl as one who understood nothing of the outer world. At Guestwick Manor Bernard was to some extent a favourite. He was actually a relative, having in his veins blood of the De Guests, and was not the less a favourite because he was the heir to Allington, and because the blood of the Dales was older even than that of the noble family to which he was allied. When Bernard should come to be the squire, then indeed there might be cordial relations between Guestwick Manor and Allington; unless, indeed, the earl’s heir and the squire’s heir should have some fresh cause of ill-will between themselves.

They found Lady Julia sitting in her drawing-room alone, and introduced to her Mr Crosbie in due form. The fact of Lily’s engagement was of course known at the manor, and it was quite understood that her intended husband was now brought over that he might be looked at and approved. Lady Julia made a very elaborate curtsey, and expressed a hope that her young friend might be made happy in that sphere of life to which it had pleased God to call her.

“I hope I shall, Lady Julia,” said Lily, with a little laugh; “at any rate I mean to try.”

“We all try, my dear, but many of us fail to try with sufficient energy of purpose. It is only by doing our duty that we can hope to be happy, whether in single life or in married.”

“Miss Dale means to be a dragon of perfection in the performance of hers,” said Crosbie.

“A dragon!” said Lady Julia. “No; I hope Miss Lily Dale will never become a dragon.” And then she turned to her nephew. It may be as well to say at once that she never forgave Mr Crosbie the freedom of the expression which he had used. He had been in the drawing-room of Guestwick Manor for two minutes only, and it did not become him to talk about dragons. “Bernard,” she said, “I heard from your mother yesterday. I am afraid she does not seem to be very strong.” And then there was a little conversation, not very interesting in its nature, between the aunt and the nephew as to the general health of Lady Fanny.

“She isn’t ill,” said Bernard. “She never is ill; but then she is never well.”

“Your aunt,” said Lady Julia, seeming to put a touch of sarcasm into the tone of her voice as she repeated the word,—”your aunt has never enjoyed good health since she left this house; but that is a long time ago.”

“A very long time,” said Crosbie, who was not accustomed to be left in his chair silent. “You, Dale, at any rate, can hardly remember it.”

“But I can remember it,” said Lady Julia, gathering herself up. “I can remember when my sister Fanny was recognised as the beauty of the country. It is a dangerous gift, that of beauty.”

“Very dangerous,” said Crosbie. Then Lily laughed again, and Lady Julia became more angry than ever. What odious man was this whom her neighbours were going to take into their very bosom! But she had heard of Mr Crosbie before, and Mr Crosbie also had heard of her.

“By-the-by, Lady Julia,” said he, “I think I know some very dear friends of yours.”

“Very dear friends is a very strong word. I have not many very dear friends.”

“I mean the Gazebees. I have heard Mortimer Gazebee and Lady Amelia speak of you.”

Whereupon Lady Julia confessed that she did know the Gazebees. Mr Gazebee, she said, was a man who in early life had wanted many advantages, but still he was a very estimable person. He was now in Parliament, and she understood that he was making himself useful. She had not quite approved of Lady Amelia’s marriage at the time, and so she had told her very old friend Lady de Courcy; but— And then Lady Julia said many words in praise of Mr Gazebee, which seemed to amount to this; that he was an excellent sort of man, with a full conviction of the too great honour done to him by the earl’s daughter who had married him, and a complete consciousness that even that marriage had not put him on a par with his wife’s relations, or even with his wife. And then it came out that Lady Julia in the course of the next week was going to meet the Gazebees at Courcy Castle.

“I am delighted to think that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you there,” said Crosbie.

“I am going to Courcy on Wednesday. That, I fear, will be too early to allow of my being of any service to your ladyship.”

Lady Julia drew herself up, and declined the escort which Mr Crosbie had seemed to offer. It grieved her to find that Lily Dale’s future husband was an intimate friend of her friend’s, and it especially grieved her to find that he was now going to that friend’s house. It was a grief to her, and she showed that it was. It also grieved Crosbie to find that Lady Julia was to be a fellow guest with himself at Courcy Castle; but he did not show it. He expressed nothing but smiles and civil self-congratulation on the matter, pretending that he would have much delight in again meeting Lady Julia; but, in truth, he would have given much could he have invented any manœuvre by which her ladyship might have been kept at home.

“What a horrid old woman she is,” said Lily, as they rode back down the avenue. “I beg your pardon, Bernard; for, of course, she is your aunt.”

“Yes; she is my aunt; and though I am not very fond of her, I deny that she is a horrid old woman. She never murdered anybody, or robbed anybody, or stole away any other woman’s lover.”

“She says her prayers earnestly, I have no doubt,” continued Bernard, “and gives away money to the poor, and would sacrifice tomorrow any desire of her own to her brother’s wish. I acknowledge that she is ugly, and pompous, and that, being a woman, she ought not to have such a long black beard on her upper lip.”

“I don’t care a bit about her beard,” said Lily. “But why did she tell me to do my duty? I didn’t go there to have a sermon preached to me.”

“And why did she talk about beauty being dangerous?” said Bell. “Of course, we all knew what she meant.”

“I didn’t know at all what she meant,” said Lily, “and I don’t know now.”

“I think she’s a charming woman, and I shall be especially civil to her at Lady de Courcy’s,” said Crosbie.

And in this way, saying hard things of the poor old spinster whom they had left, they made their way into Guestwick, and again dismounted at Mrs Eames’s door.

Chapter XIII.
A Visit to Guestwick

As the party from Allington rode up the narrow High Street of Guestwick, and across the market square towards the small, respectable, but very dull row of new houses in which Mrs Eames lived, the people of Guestwick were all aware that Miss Lily Dale was escorted by her future husband. The opinion that she had been a very fortunate girl was certainly general among the Guestwickians, though it was not always expressed in open or generous terms. “It was a great match for her,” some said, but shook their heads at the same time, hinting that Mr Crosbie’s life in London was not all that it should be, and suggesting that she might have been more safe had she been content to bestow herself upon some country neighbour of less dangerous pretensions. Others declared that it was no such great match after all. They knew his income to a penny, and believed that the young people would find it very difficult to keep a house in London unless the old squire intended to assist them. But, nevertheless, Lily was envied as she rode through the town with her handsome lover by her side.

And she was very happy. I will not deny that she had some feeling of triumphant satisfaction in the knowledge that she was envied. Such a feeling on her part was natural, and is natural to all men and women who are conscious that they have done well in the adjustment of their own affairs. As she herself had said, he was her bird, the spoil of her own gun, the product of such capacity as she had in her, on which she was to live, and, if possible, to thrive during the remainder of her life. Lily fully recognised the importance of the thing she was doing, and, in soberest guise, had thought much of this matter of marriage. But the more she thought of it the more satisfied she was that she was doing well. And yet she knew that there was a risk. He who was now everything to her might die; nay, it was possible that he might be other than she thought him to be; that he might neglect her, desert her, or misuse her. But she had resolved to trust in everything, and, having so trusted, she would not provide for herself any possibility of retreat. Her ship should go out into the middle ocean, beyond all ken of the secure port from which it had sailed; her army should fight its battle with no hope of other safety than that which victory gives. All the world might know that she loved him if all the world chose to inquire about the matter. She triumphed in her lover, and did not deny even to herself that she was triumphant.

Mrs Eames was delighted to see them. It was so good in Mr Crosbie to come over and call upon such a poor, forlorn woman as her, and so good in Captain Dale; so good also in the dear girls, who, at the present moment, had so much to make them happy at home at Allington! Little things, accounted as bare civilities by others, were esteemed as great favours by Mrs Eames.

“And dear Mrs Dale? I hope she was not fatigued when we kept her up the other night so unconscionably late?” Bell and Lily both assured her that their mother was none the worse for what she had gone through; and then Mrs Eames got up and left the room, with the declared purpose of looking for John and Mary, but bent, in truth, on the production of some cake and sweet wine which she kept under lock and key in the little parlour.

“No, not very long,” said Lily. “But when you come to see my friends you mustn’t be in a hurry, Mr Crosbie.”

“He had his turn with Lady Julia,” said Bell, “and we must have ours now.”

“At any rate, Mrs Eames won’t tell us to do our duty and to beware of being too beautiful,” said Lily.

Mary and John came into the room before their mother returned; then came Mrs Eames, and a few minutes afterwards the cake and wine arrived. It certainly was rather dull, as none of the party seemed to be at their ease. The grandeur of Mr Crosbie was too great for Mrs Eames and her daughter, and John was almost silenced by the misery of his position. He had not yet answered Miss Roper’s letter, nor had he even made up his mind whether he would answer it or no. And then the sight of Lily’s happiness did not fill him with all that friendly joy which he should perhaps have felt as the friend of her childhood. To tell the truth, he hated Crosbie, and so he had told himself; and had so told his sister also very frequently since the day of the party.

“I tell you what it is, Molly,” he had said, “if there was any way of doing it, I’d fight that man.”

“She’ll never be happy with him. I’m sure she won’t. I don’t want to do her any harm, but yet I’d like to fight that man,—if I only knew how to manage it.”

And then he bethought himself that if they could both be slaughtered in such an encounter it would be the only fitting termination to the present state of things. In that way, too, there would be an escape from Amelia, and, at the present moment, he saw none other.

When he entered the room he shook hands with all the party from Allington, but, as he told his sister afterwards, his flesh crept when he touched Crosbie. Crosbie, as he contemplated the Eames family sitting stiff and ill at ease in their own drawing-room chairs, made up his mind that it would be well that his wife should see as little of John Eames as might be when she came to London;—not that he was in any way jealous of her lover. He had learned everything from Lily,—all, at least, that Lily knew,—and regarded the matter rather as a good joke. “Don’t see him too often,” he had said to her, “for fear he should make an ass of himself.” Lily had told him everything,—all that she could tell; but yet he did not in the least comprehend that Lily had, in truth, a warm affection for the young man whom he despised.

“Thank you, no,” said Crosbie. “I never do take wine in the middle of the day.”

“But a bit of cake?” And Mrs Eames by her look implored him to do her so much honour. She implored Captain Dale, also, but they were both inexorable. I do not know that the two girls were at all more inclined to eat and drink than the two men; but they understood that Mrs Eames would be brokenhearted if no one partook of her delicacies. The little sacrifices of society are all made by women, as are also the great sacrifices of life. A man who is good for anything is always ready for his duty, and so is a good woman always ready for a sacrifice.

“We really must go now,” said Bell, “because of the horses.” And under this excuse they got away.

“You will come over before you go back to London, John?” said Lily, as he came out with the intention of helping her mount, from which purpose, however, he was forced to recede by the iron will of Mr Crosbie.

“Goodbye, John,” said Bell. “Goodbye, Eames,” said Captain Dale. Crosbie, as he seated himself in the saddle, made the very slightest sign of recognition, to which his rival would not condescend to pay any attention. “I’ll manage to have a fight with him in some way,” said Eames to himself as he walked back through the passage of his mother’s house. And Crosbie, as he settled his feet in the stirrups, felt that he disliked the young man more and more. It would be monstrous to suppose that there could be aught of jealousy in the feeling; and yet he did dislike him very strongly, and felt almost angry with Lily for asking him to come again to Allington. “I must put an end to all that,” he said to himself as he rode silently out of town.

“You must not snub my friends, sir,” said Lily, smiling as she spoke, but yet with something of earnestness in her voice. They were out of the town by this time, and Crosbie had hardly uttered a word since they had left Mrs Eames’s door. They were now on the high road, and Bell and Bernard Dale were somewhat in advance of them.

“I never snub anybody,” said Crosbie, petulantly; “that is unless they have absolutely deserved snubbing.”

“Nonsense, Lily. I never snubbed you yet, and I don’t think it likely that I shall begin. But you ought not to accuse me of not being civil to your friends. In the first place I am as civil to them as my nature will allow me to be. And, in the second place—”

“I am not quite sure that you are very wise to encourage that young man’s friendship just at present.”

“No, dearest, it does not mean that. If I meant so I would tell you so honestly. I mean just what I say. There can, I suppose, be no doubt that he has filled himself with some kind of romantic attachment for you,—a foolish kind of love which I don’t suppose he ever expected to gratify, but the idea of which lends a sort of grace to his life. When he meets some young woman fit to be his wife he will forget all about it, but till then he will go about fancying himself a despairing lover. And then such a young man as John Eames is very apt to talk of his fancies.”

“And I can assure you that they are generally too well inclined to make free with the names of girls whom they think that they like. You must not be surprised if I am unwilling that any man should make free with your name.”

After this Lily was silent for a minute or two. She felt that an injustice was being done to her and she was not inclined to put up with it, but she could not quite see where the injustice lay. A great deal was owing from her to Crosbie. In very much she was bound to yield to him, and she was anxious to do on his behalf even more than her duty. But yet she had a strong conviction that it would not be well that she should give way to him in everything. She wished to think as he thought as far as possible, but she could not say that she agreed with him when she knew that she differed from him. John Eames was an old friend whom she could not abandon, and so much at the present time she felt herself obliged to say.

“You would not wish me to be unkind to so very old a friend as John Eames? I have known him all my life, and we have all of us had a very great regard for the whole family. His father was my uncle’s most particular friend.”

“I think, Lily, you must understand what I mean. I don’t want you to quarrel with any of them, or to be what you call unkind. But you need not give special and pressing invitations to this young man to come and see you before he goes back to London, and then to come and see you directly you get to London. You tell me that he had some kind of romantic idea of being in love with you;—of being in despair because you are not in love with him. It’s all great nonsense, no doubt, but it seems to me that under such circumstances you’d better—just leave him alone.”

Again Lily was silent. These were her three last days, in which it was her intention to be especially happy, but above all things to make him especially happy. On no account would she say to him sharp words, or encourage in her own heart a feeling of animosity against him, and yet she believed him to be wrong; and so believing could hardly bring herself to bear the injury. Such was her nature, as a Dale. And let it be remembered that very many who can devote themselves for great sacrifices, cannot bring themselves to the endurance of little injuries. Lily could have given up any gratification for her lover, but she could not allow herself to have been in the wrong, believing herself to have been in the right.

“Certainly not, after what you have said, Adolphus. If he comes over to Allington, he will see me in mamma’s house, to which he has always been made welcome by her. Of course I understand perfectly—”

But she had stopped herself, fearing that she might say that which would be offensive to him if she continued.

“Do not press me to go on, Adolphus. As far as I can, I will do all that you want me to do.”

“You meant to say that when you find yourself an inmate of my house, as a matter of course you could not ask your own friends to come and see you. Was that gracious?”

“Whatever I may have meant to say, I did not say that. Nor in truth did I mean it. Pray don’t go on about it now. These are to be our last days, you know, and we shouldn’t waste them by talking of things that are unpleasant. After all poor Johnny Eames is nothing to me; nothing, nothing. How can any one be anything to me when I think of you?”

But even this did not bring Crosbie back at once into a pleasant humour. Had Lily yielded to him and confessed that he was right, he would have made himself at once as pleasant as the sun in May. But this she had not done. She had simply abstained from her argument because she did not choose to be vexed, and had declared her continued purpose of seeing Eames on his promised visit. Crosbie would have had her acknowledge herself wrong, and would have delighted in the privilege of forgiving her. But Lily Dale was one who did not greatly relish forgiveness, or any necessity of being forgiven. So they rode on, if not in silence, without much joy in their conversation. It was now late on the Monday afternoon, and Crosbie was to go early on the Wednesday morning. What if these three last days should come to be marred with such terrible drawbacks as these!

Bernard Dale had not spoken a word to his cousin of his suit, since they had been interrupted by Crosbie and Lily as they were lying on the bank by the ha-ha. He had danced with her again and again at Mrs Dale’s party, and had seemed to revert to his old modes of conversation without difficulty. Bell, therefore, had believed the matter to be over, and was thankful to her cousin, declaring within her own bosom that the whole matter should be treated by her as though it had never happened. To no one,—not even to her mother, would she tell it. To such reticence she bound herself for his sake, feeling that he would be best pleased that it should be so. But now as they rode on together, far in advance of the other couple, he again returned to the subject.

“I hardly know whether a man is bound to take a single answer on such a subject. But this I know, that if a man’s heart is concerned, he is not very willing to do so.”

“Oh, no doubt. I don’t at all suppose that you were dishonest or false when you refused to allow me to speak to you.”

“Something very like it. But, however, I have no doubt you were true enough. But, Bell, why should it be so? If you were in love with any one else I could understand it.”

“Exactly. And there are so many reasons why you and I should join our fortunes together.”

“Do listen to me. Do let me speak, at any rate. I presume I may at least suppose that you do not dislike me.”

“And though you might not be willing to accept any man’s hand merely on a question of fortune, surely the fact that our marriage would be in every way suitable as regards money should not set you against it. Of my own love for you I will not speak further, as I do not doubt that you believe what I say; but should you not question your own feelings very closely before you determine to oppose the wishes of all those who are nearest to you?”

“Not her especially, though I cannot but think she would like a marriage that would keep all the family together, and would give you an equal claim to the property to that which I have.”

“Then you cannot know. And as to my uncle, I have the means of knowing that it is the great desire of his life. I must say that I think some consideration for him should induce you to pause before you give a final answer, even though no consideration for me should have any weight with you.”

“Then do this for me. Allow me to think that I have not yet had an answer to my proposal; give me to this day month, to Christmas; till any time that you like to name, so that I may think that it is not yet settled, and may tell Uncle Christopher that such is the case.”

“But I am not willing to think of it;—not in that way. I do know my own mind thoroughly, and I should be very wrong if I were to deceive you.”

“To tell the truth, Bernard, I do not much care what you may say to my uncle in this matter. He can have no right to interfere in the disposal of my hand, and therefore I need not regard his wishes on the subject. I will explain to you in one word what my feelings are about it. I would accept no man in opposition to mamma’s wishes; but not even for her could I accept any man in opposition to my own. But as concerns my uncle, I do not feel myself called on to consult him in any way on such a matter.”

“That I deny. He has not been generous to mamma. He is very hard and ungenerous to mamma. He lets her have that house because he is anxious that the Dales should seem to be respectable before the world; and she lives in it, because she thinks it better for us that she should do so. If I had my way, she should leave it tomorrow—or, at any rate, as soon as Lily is married. I would much sooner go into Guestwick, and live as the Eames do.”

“No; I am not ungrateful. And as to consulting, Bernard, I should be much more inclined to consult you than him about my marriage. If you would let me look on you altogether as a brother, I should think little of promising to marry no one whom you did not approve.”

But such an agreement between them would by no means have suited Bernard’s views. He had thought, some four or five weeks back, that he was not personally very anxious for this match. He had declared to himself that he liked his cousin well enough; that it would be a good thing for him to settle himself; that his uncle was reasonable in his wishes and sufficiently liberal in his offers; and that, therefore, he would marry. It had hardly occurred to him as probable that his cousin would reject so eligible an offer, and had certainly never occurred to him that he would have to suffer anything from such rejection. He had entertained none of that feeling of which lovers speak when they declare that they are staking their all upon the hazard of a die. It had not seemed to him that he was staking anything, as he gently told his tale of languid love, lying on the turf by the ha-ha. He had not regarded the possibility of disappointment, of sorrow, and of a deeply-vexed mind. He would have felt but little triumph if accepted, and had not thought that he could be humiliated by any rejection. In this frame of mind he had gone to his work; but now he found, to his own surprise, that this girl’s answer had made him absolutely unhappy. Having expressed a wish for this thing, the very expression of the wish made him long to possess it. He found, as he rode along silently by her side, that he was capable of more earnestness of desire than he had known himself to possess. He was at this moment unhappy, disappointed, anxious, distrustful of the future, and more intent on one special toy than he had ever been before, even as a boy. He was vexed, and felt himself to be sore at heart. He looked round at her, as she sat silent, quiet, and somewhat sad upon her pony, and declared to himself that she was very beautiful,—that she was a thing to be gained if still there might be the possibility of gaining her. He felt that he really loved her, and yet he was almost angry with himself for so feeling. Why had he subjected himself to this numbing weakness? His love had never given him any pleasure. Indeed he had never hitherto acknowledged it; but now he was driven to do so on finding it to be the source of trouble and pain. I think it is open to us to doubt whether, even yet, Bernard Dale was in love with his cousin; whether he was not rather in love with his own desire. But against himself he found a verdict that he was in love, and was angry with himself and with all the world.

“Ah, Bell,” he said, coming close up to her, “I wish you could understand how I love you.” And, as he spoke, his cousin unconsciously recognised more of affection in his tone, and less of that spirit of bargaining which had seemed to pervade all his former pleas, than she had ever found before.

“And do I not love you? Have I not offered to be to you in all respects as a sister?”

“That is nothing. Such an offer to me now is simply laughing at me. Bell, I tell you what,—I will not give you up. The fact is, you do not know me yet,—not know me as you must know any man before you choose him for your husband. You and Lily are not alike in this. You are cautious, doubtful of yourself, and perhaps, also, somewhat doubtful of others. My heart is set upon this, and I shall still try to succeed.”

“Ah, Bernard, do not say that! Believe me, when I tell you that it can never be.”

“No; I will not believe you. I will not allow myself to be made utterly wretched. I tell you fairly that I will not believe you. I may surely hope if I choose to hope. No, Bell, I will never give you up,—unless, indeed, I should see you become another man’s wife.”

As he said this, they all turned in through the squire’s gate, and rode up to the yard in which it was their habit to dismount from their horses.

Chapter XIV.
John Eames Takes a Walk

John Eames watched the party of cavaliers as they rode away from his mother’s door, and then started upon a solitary walk, as soon as the noise of the horses’ hoofs had passed away out of the street. He was by no means happy in his mind as he did so. Indeed, he was overwhelmed with care and trouble, and as he went along very gloomy thoughts passed through his mind. Had he not better go to Australia, or Vancouver’s Island, or—? I will not name the places which the poor fellow suggested to himself as possible terminations of the long journeys which he might not improbably be called upon to take. That very day, just before the Dales had come in, he had received a second letter from his darling Amelia, written very closely upon the heels of the first. Why had he not answered her? Was he ill? Was he untrue? No; she would not believe that, and therefore fell back upon the probability of his illness. If it was so, she would rush down to see him. Nothing on earth should keep her from the bedside of her betrothed. If she did not get an answer from her beloved John by return of post, she would be down with him at Guestwick by the express train. Here was a position for such a young man as John Eames! And of Amelia Roper we may say that she was a young woman who would not give up her game, as long as the least chance remained of her winning it. “I must go somewhere,” John said to himself, as he put on his slouched hat and wandered forth through the back streets of Guestwick. What would his mother say when she heard of Amelia Roper? What would she say when she saw her?

He walked away towards the Manor, so that he might roam about the Guestwick woods in solitude. There was a path with a stile, leading off from the high road, about half a mile beyond the lodges through which the Dales had ridden up to the house, and by this path John Eames turned in, and went away till he had left the Manor house behind him, and was in the centre of the Guestwick woods. He knew the whole ground well, having roamed there ever since he was first allowed to go forth upon his walks alone. He had thought of Lily Dale by the hour together, as he had lost himself among the oak-trees; but in those former days he had thought of her with some pleasure. Now he could only think of her as of one gone from him for ever; and then he had also to think of her whom he had taken to himself in Lily’s place.

Young men, very young men,—men so young that it may be almost a question whether or no they have as yet reached their manhood,—are more inclined to be earnest and thoughtful when alone than they ever are when with others, even though those others be their elders. I fancy that, as we grow old ourselves, we are apt to forget that it was so with us; and, forgetting it, we do not believe that it is so with our children. We constantly talk of the thoughtlessness of youth. I do not know whether we might not more appropriately speak of its thoughtfulness. It is, however, no doubt, true that thought will not at once produce wisdom. It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution. Men, full fledged and at their work, are, for the most part, too busy for much thought; but lads, on whom the work of the world has not yet fallen with all its pressure,—they have time for thinking.

And thus John Eames was thoughtful. They who knew him best accounted him to be a gay, good-hearted, somewhat reckless young man, open to temptation, but also open to good impressions; as to whom no great success could be predicated, but of whom his friends might fairly hope that he might so live as to bring upon them no disgrace and not much trouble. But, above all things, they would have called him thoughtless. In so calling him, they judged him wrong. He was ever thinking,—thinking much of the world as it appeared to him, and of himself as he appeared to the world; and thinking, also, of things beyond the world. What was to be his fate here and hereafter? Lily Dale was gone from him, and Amelia Roper was hanging round his neck like a millstone! What, under such circumstances, was to be his fate here and hereafter?

We may say that the difficulties in his way were not as yet very great. As to Lily, indeed, he had no room for hope; but, then, his love for Lily had, perhaps, been a sentiment rather than a passion. Most young men have to go through that disappointment, and are enabled to bear it without much injury to their prospects or happiness. And in after-life the remembrance of such love is a blessing rather than a curse, enabling the possessor of it to feel that in those early days there was something within him of which he had no cause to be ashamed. I do not pity John Eames much in regard to Lily Dale. And then, as to Amelia Roper,—had he achieved but a tithe of that lady’s experience in the world, or possessed a quarter of her audacity, surely such a difficulty as that need not have stood much in his way! What could Amelia do to him if he fairly told her that he was not minded to marry her? In very truth he had never promised to do so. He was in no way bound to her, not even by honour. Honour, indeed, with such as her! But men are cowards before women until they become tyrants; and are easy dupes, till of a sudden they recognise the fact that it is pleasanter to be the victimiser than the victim,—and as easy. There are men, indeed, who never learn the latter lesson.

But, though the cause for fear was so slight, poor John Eames was thoroughly afraid. Little things which, in connection with so deep a sorrow as his, it is almost ridiculous to mention, added to his embarrassments, and made an escape from them seem to him to be impossible. He could not return to London without going to Burton Crescent, because his clothes were there, and because he owed to Mrs Roper some small sum of money which on his return to London he would not have immediately in his pocket. He must therefore meet Amelia, and he knew that he had not the courage to tell a girl, face to face, that he did not love her, after he had been once induced to say that he did do so. His boldest conception did not go beyond the writing of a letter in which he would renounce her, and removing himself altogether from that quarter of the town in which Burton Crescent was situated. But then about his clothes, and that debt of his? And what if Amelia should in the meantime come down to Guestwick and claim him? Could he in his mother’s presence declare that she had no right to make such claim? The difficulties, in truth, were not very great, but they were too heavy for that poor young clerk from the Income-tax Office.

You will declare that he must have been a fool and a coward. Yet he could read and understand Shakespeare. He knew much,—by far too much,—of Byron’s poetry by heart. He was a deep critic, often writing down his criticisms in a lengthy journal which he kept. He could write quickly, and with understanding; and I may declare that men at his office had already ascertained that he was no fool. He knew his business, and could do it,—as many men failed to do who were much less foolish before the world. And as to that matter of cowardice, he would have thought it the greatest blessing in the world to be shut up in a room with Crosbie, having permission to fight with him till one of them should have been brought by stress of battle to give up his claim to Lily Dale. Eames was no coward. He feared no man on earth. But he was terribly afraid of Amelia Roper.

He wandered about through the old Manor woods very ill at ease. The post from Guestwick went out at seven, and he must at once make up his mind whether or no he would write to Amelia on that day. He must also make up his mind as to what he would say to her. He felt that he should at least answer her letter, let his answer be what it might. Should he promise to marry her,—say, in ten or twelve years’ time? Should he tell her that he was a blighted being, unfit for love, and with humility entreat of her that he might be excused? Or should he write to her mother, telling her that Burton Crescent would not suit him any longer, promising her to send the balance on receipt of his next payment, and asking her to send his clothes in a bundle to the Income-tax Office? Or should he go home to his own mother, and boldly tell it all to her?

He at last resolved that he must write the letter, and as he composed it in his mind he sat himself down beneath an old tree which stood on a spot at which many of the forest tracks met and crossed each other. The letter, as he framed it here, was not a bad letter, if only he could have got it written and posted. Every word of it he chose with precision, and in his mind he emphasised every expression which told his mind clearly and justified his purpose. “He acknowledged himself to have been wrong in misleading his correspondent, and allowing her to imagine that she possessed his heart. He had not a heart at her disposal. He had been weak not to write to her before, having been deterred from doing so by the fear of giving her pain; but now he felt that he was bound in honour to tell her the truth. Having so told her, he would not return to Burton Crescent, if it would pain her to see him there. He would always have a deep regard for her,”—oh, Johnny!—”and would hope anxiously that her welfare in life might be complete.” That was the letter, as he wrote it on the tablets of his mind under the tree; but the getting it put on to paper was a task, as he knew, of greater difficulty. Then, as he repeated it to himself, he fell asleep.

“Young man,” said a voice in his ear as he slept. At first the voice spoke as a voice from his dream without waking him, but when it was repeated, he sat up and saw that a stout gentleman was standing over him. For a moment he did not know where he was, or how he had come there; nor could he recollect, as he saw the trees about him, how long he had been in the wood. But he knew the stout gentleman well enough, though he had not seen him for more than two years. “Young man,” said the voice, “if you want to catch rheumatism, that’s the way to do it. Why, it’s young Eames, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my lord,” said Johnny, raising himself up so that he was now sitting, instead of lying, as he looked up into the earl’s rosy face.

“I knew your father, and a very good man he was; only he shouldn’t have taken to farming. People think they can farm without learning the trade, but that’s a very great mistake. I can farm, because I’ve learned it. Don’t you think you’d better get up?” Whereupon Johnny raised himself to his feet. “Not but what you’re very welcome to lie there if you like it. Only, in October, you know—”

“I’m afraid I’m trespassing, my lord,” said Eames. “I came in off the path, and—”

“You’re welcome; you’re very welcome. If you’ll come up to the house, I’ll give you some luncheon.” This hospitable offer, however, Johnny declined, alleging that it was late, and that he was going home to dinner.

“Come along,” said the earl. “You can’t go any shorter way than by the house. Dear, dear, how well I remember your father. He was a much cleverer man than I am,—very much; but he didn’t know how to send a beast to market any better than a child. By-the-by, they have put you into a public office, haven’t they?”

“And a very good thing, too,—a very good thing, indeed. But why were you asleep in the wood? It isn’t warm, you know. I call it rather cold.” And the earl stopped, and looked at him, scrutinising him, as though resolved to inquire into so deep a mystery.

“Have you got into trouble? You look as though you were in trouble. Your poor father used to be in trouble.”

“Ha, ha, ha,—quite right. No, don’t take to farming. Unless you learn it, you know, you might just as well take to shoemaking;—just the same. You haven’t got into trouble, then; eh?”

“Not particularly! I know very well that young men do get into trouble when they get up to London. If you want any—any advice, or that sort of thing, you may come to me; for I knew your father well. Do you like shooting?”

“Well, perhaps better not. To tell the truth, I’m not very fond of young men who take to shooting without having anything to shoot at. By-the-by, now I think of it, I’ll send your mother some game.” It may, however, here be fair to mention that game very often came from Guestwick Manor to Mrs Eames. “And look here, cold pheasant for breakfast is the best thing I know of. Pheasants at dinner are rubbish,—mere rubbish. Here we are at the house. Will you come in and have a glass of wine?”

But this John Eames declined, pleasing the earl better by doing so than he would have done by accepting it. Not that the lord was inhospitable or insincere in his offer, but he preferred that such a one as John Eames should receive his proffered familiarity without too much immediate assurance. He felt that Eames was a little in awe of his companion’s rank, and he liked him the better for it. He liked him the better for it, and was a man apt to remember his likings. “If you won’t come in, Goodbye,” and he gave Johnny his hand.

“And remember this; it is the deuce of a thing to have rheumatism in your loins. I wouldn’t go to sleep under a tree, if I were you,—not in October. But you’re always welcome to go anywhere about the place.”

“And if you should take to shooting,—but I dare say you won’t; and if you come to trouble, and want advice, or that sort of thing, write to me. I knew your father well.” And so they parted, Eames returning on his road towards Guestwick.

For some reason, which he could not define, he felt better after his interview with the earl. There had been something about the fat, goodnatured, sensible old man, which had cheered him, in spite of his sorrow. “Pheasants for dinner are rubbish,—mere rubbish,” he said to himself, over and over again, as he went along the road; and they were the first words which he spoke to his mother, after entering the house.

“The earl was, at any rate, quite right about lying upon the ground. I wonder you can be so foolish. And he is right about your poor father too. But you have got to change your boots; and we shall be ready for dinner almost immediately.”

But Johnny Eames, before he sat down to dinner, did write his letter to Amelia, and did go out to post it with his own hands,—much to his mother’s annoyance. But the letter would not get itself written in that strong and appropriate language which had come to him as he was roaming through the woods. It was a bald letter, and somewhat cowardly withal.

Dear Amelia [the letter ran],

I have received both of yours; and did not answer the first because I felt that there was a difficulty in expressing what I wish to say; and now it will be better that you should allow the subject to stand over till I am back in town. I shall be there in ten days from this. I have been quite well, and am so; but of course am much obliged by your inquiries. I know you will think this very cold; but when I tell you everything, you will agree with me that it is best. If I were to marry, I know that we should be unhappy, because we should have nothing to live on. If I have ever said anything to deceive you, I beg your pardon with all my heart;—but perhaps it will be better to let the subject remain till we shall meet again in London.

Believe me to be
Your most sincere friend,
And I may say admirer,—[Oh, John Eames!]
John Eames.

Chapter XV.
The Last Day

Last days are wretched days; and so are last moments wretched moments. It is not the fact that the parting is coming which makes these days and moments so wretched, but the feeling that something special is expected from them, which something they always fail to produce. Spasmodic periods of pleasure, of affection, or even of study, seldom fail of disappointment when premeditated. When last days are coming, they should be allowed to come and to glide away without special notice or mention. And as for last moments, there should be none such. Let them ever be ended, even before their presence has been acknowledged.

But Lily Dale had not yet been taught these lessons by her world’s experience, and she expected that this sweetest cup of which she had ever drank should go on being sweet—sweeter and still sweeter—as long as she could press it to her lips. How the dregs had come to mix themselves with the last drops we have already seen; and on that same day,—on the Monday evening,—the bitter task still remained; for Crosbie, as they walked about through the gardens in the evening, found other subjects on which he thought it necessary to give her sundry hints, intended for her edification, which came to her with much of the savour of a lecture. A girl, when she is thoroughly in love, as surely was the case with Lily, likes to receive hints as to her future life from the man to whom she is devoted; but she would, I think, prefer that such hints should be short, and that the lesson should be implied rather than declared;—that they should, in fact, be hints and not lectures. Crosbie, who was a man of tact, who understood the world and had been dealing with women for many years, no doubt understood all this as well as we do. But he had come to entertain a notion that he was an injured man, that he was giving very much more than was to be given to him, and that therefore he was entitled to take liberties which might not fairly be within the reach of another lover. My reader will say that in all this he was ungenerous. Well; he was ungenerous. I do not know that I have ever said that much generosity was to be expected from him. He had some principles of right and wrong under the guidance of which it may perhaps be hoped that he will not go utterly astray; but his past life had not been of a nature to make him unselfish. He was ungenerous, and Lily felt it, though she would not acknowledge it even to herself. She had been very open with him,—acknowledging the depth of her love for him; telling him that he was now all in all to her; that life without his love would be impossible to her: and in a certain way he took advantage of these strong avowals, treating her as though she were a creature utterly in his power;—as indeed she was.

On that evening he said no more of Johnny Eames, but said much of the difficulty of a man establishing himself with a wife in London, who had nothing but his own moderate income on which to rely. He did not in so many words tell her that if her friends could make up for her two or three thousand pounds,—that being much less than he had expected when he first made his offer,—this terrible difficulty would be removed; but he said enough to make her understand that the world would call him very imprudent in taking a girl who had nothing. And as he spoke of these things, Lily remaining for the most part silent as he did so, it occurred to him that he might talk to her freely of his past life,—more freely than he would have done had he feared that he might lose her by any such disclosures. He had no fear of losing her. Alas! might it not be possible that he had some such hope!

He told her that his past life had been expensive; that, though he was not in debt, he had lived up to every shilling that he had, and that he had contracted habits of expenditure which it would be almost impossible for him to lay aside at a day’s notice. Then he spoke of entanglements, meaning, as he did so, to explain more fully what were their nature,—but not daring to do so when he found that Lily was altogether in the dark as to what he meant. No; he was not a generous man,—a very ungenerous man. And yet, during all this time, he thought that he was guided by principle. “It will be best that I should be honest with her,” he said to himself. And then he told himself, scores of times, that when making his offer he had expected, and had a right to expect, that she would not be penniless. Under those circumstances he had done the best he could for her—offering her his heart honestly, with a quick readiness to make her his own at the earliest day that she might think possible. Had he been more cautious, he need not have fallen into this cruel mistake; but she, at any rate, could not quarrel with him for his imprudence. And still he was determined to stand by his engagement and willing to marry her, although, as he the more thought of it, he felt the more strongly that he would thereby ruin his prospects, and thrust beyond his own reach all those good things which he had hoped to win. As he continued to talk to her he gave himself special credit for his generosity, and felt that he was only doing his duty by her in pointing out to her all the difficulties which lay in the way of their marriage.

At first Lily said some words intended to convey an assurance that she would be the most economical wife that man ever had, but she soon ceased from such promises as these. Her perceptions were keen, and she discovered that the difficulties of which he was afraid were those which he must overcome before his marriage, not any which might be expected to overwhelm him after it. “A cheap and nasty ménage would be my aversion,” he said to her. “It is that which I want to avoid,—chiefly for your sake.” Then she promised him that she would wait patiently for his time—”even though it should be for seven years,” she said, looking up into his face and trying to find there some sign of approbation. “That’s nonsense,” he said. “People are not patriarchs nowadays. I suppose we shall have to wait two years. And that’s a deuce of a bore,—a terrible bore.” And there was that in the tone of his voice which grated on her feelings, and made her wretched for the moment.

As he parted with her for the night on her own side of the little bridge which led from one garden to the other, he put his arm round her to embrace her and kiss her, as he had often done at that spot. It had become a habit with them to say their evening farewells there, and the secluded little nook amongst the shrubs was inexpressibly dear to Lily. But on the present occasion she made an effort to avoid his caress. She turned from him—very slightly, but it was enough, and he felt it. “Are you angry with me?” he said. “Oh, no! Adolphus; how can I be angry with you?” And then she turned to him and gave him her face to kiss almost before he had again asked for it. “He shall not at any rate think that I am unkind to him,—and it will not matter now,” she said to herself, as she walked slowly across the lawn, in the dark, up to her mother’s drawing-room window.

“Well, dearest,” said Mrs Dale, who was there alone; “did the beards wag merry in the Great Hall this evening?” That was a joke with them, for neither Crosbie nor Bernard Dale used a razor at his toilet.

“Not specially merry. And I think it was my fault, for I have a headache. Mamma, I believe I will go at once to bed.”

“Nothing, mamma. But we had such a long ride; and then Adolphus is going, and of course we have so much to say. Tomorrow will be the last day, for I shall only just see him on Wednesday morning; and as I want to be well, if possible, I’ll go to bed.” And so she took her candle and went.

When Bell came up, Lily was still awake, but she begged her sister not to disturb her. “Don’t talk to me, Bell,” she said. “I’m trying to make myself quiet, and I half feel that I should get childish if I went on talking. I have almost more to think of than I know how to manage.” And she strove, not altogether unsuccessfully, to speak with a cheery tone, as though the cares which weighed upon her were not unpleasant in their nature. Then her sister kissed her and left her to her thoughts.

And she had great matter for thinking; so great, that many hours sounded in her ears from the clock on the stairs before she brought her thoughts to a shape that satisfied herself. She did so bring them at last, and then she slept. She did so bring them, toiling over her work with tears that made her pillow wet, with heartburning and almost with heartbreaking, with much doubting, and many anxious, eager inquiries within her own bosom as to that which she ought to do, and that which she could endure to do. But at last her resolve was taken, and then she slept.

It had been agreed between them that Crosbie should come down to the Small House on the next day after breakfast, and remain there till the time came for riding. But Lily determined to alter this arrangement, and accordingly put on her hat immediately after breakfast, and posted herself at the bridge, so as to intercept her lover as he came. He soon appeared with his friend Dale, and she at once told him her purpose.

“I want to have a talk with you, Adolphus, before you go in to mamma; so come with me into the field.”

“And Bernard can finish his cigar on the lawn. Mamma and Bell will join him there.”

“All right,” said Bernard. So they separated; and Crosbie went away with Lily into the field where they had first learned to know each other in those haymaking days.

She did not say much till they were well away from the house; but answered what words he chose to speak,—not knowing very well of what he spoke. But when she considered that they had reached the proper spot, she began very abruptly.

“Adolphus,” she said, “I have something to say to you,—something to which you must listen very carefully.” Then he looked at her, and at once knew that she was in earnest.

“This is the last day on which I could say it,” she continued; “and I am very glad that I have not let the last day go by without saying it. I should not have known how to put it in a letter.”

“And I do not know that I can say it properly; but I hope that you will not be hard upon me. Adolphus, if you wish that all this between us should be over, I will consent.”

“I mean what I say. If you wish it, I will consent; and when I have said so, proposing it myself, you may be quite sure that I shall never blame you, if you take me at my word.”

“No. I shall never be tired of you,—never weary with loving you. I did not wish to say so now; but I will answer your question boldly. Tired of you! I fancy that a girl can never grow tired of her lover. But I would sooner die in the struggle than be the cause of your ruin. It would be better—in every way better.”

“But listen to me. I should not die if you left me,—not be utterly brokenhearted. Nothing on earth can I ever love as I have loved you. But I have a God and a Saviour that will be enough for me. I can turn to them with content, if it be well that you should leave me. I have gone to them, and—” But at this moment she could utter no more words. She had broken down in her effort, losing her voice through the strength of her emotion. As she did not choose that he should see her overcome, she turned from him and walked away across the grass.

Of course he followed her; but he was not so quick after her but that time had been given to her to recover herself. “It is true,” she said. “I have the strength of which I tell you. Though I have given myself to you as your wife, I can bear to be divorced from you now,—now. And, my love, though it may sound heartless, I would sooner be so divorced from you, than cling to you as a log that must drag you down under the water, and drown you in trouble and care. I would;—indeed I would. If you go, of course that kind of thing is over for me. But the world has more than that,—much more; and I would make myself happy,—yes, my love, I would be happy. You need not fear that.”

“Because it is my duty to say it. I understand all your position now, though it is only now. It never flashed on me till yesterday. When you proposed to me, you thought that I—that I had some fortune.”

“But you did. I see it all now. I ought perhaps to have told you that it was not so. There has been the mistake, and we are both sufferers. But we need not make the suffering deeper than needs be. My love, you are free,—from this moment. And even my heart shall not blame you for accepting your freedom.”

“I am afraid of poverty for you. You and I have lived differently. Luxuries, of which I know nothing, have been your daily comforts. I tell you I can bear to part with you, but I cannot bear to become the source of your unhappiness. Yes; I will bear it; and none shall dare in my hearing to speak against you. I have brought you here to say the word; nay, more than that,—to advise you to say it.”

He stood silent for a moment, during which he held her by the hand. She was looking into his face, but he was looking away into the clouds; striving to appear as though he was the master of the occasion. But during those moments his mind was wracked with doubt. What if he should take her at her word? Some few would say bitter things against him, but such bitter things had been said against many another man without harming him. Would it not be well for both if he should take her at her word? She would recover and love again, as other girls had done; and as for him, he would thus escape from the ruin at which he had been gazing for the last week past. For it was ruin,—utter ruin. He did love her; so he declared to himself. But was he a man who ought to throw the world away for love? Such men there were; but was he one of them? Could he be happy in that small house, somewhere near the New Road, with five children and horrid misgivings as to the baker’s bill? Of all men living, was not he the last that should have allowed himself to fall into such a trap? All this passed through his mind as he turned his face up to the clouds with a look that was intended to be grand and noble.

Then his heart misgave him, and he lacked the courage to extricate himself from his trouble; or, as he afterwards said to himself, he had not the heart to do it. “If I understand you, rightly, Lily, all this comes from no want of love on your own part?”

“Until you tell me that there is such a want, I will agree to no parting.” Then he took her hand and put it within his arm. “No, Lily; whatever may be our cares and troubles, we are bound together,—indissolubly.”

“Are we?” said she; and as she spoke, her voice trembled, and her hand shook.

“Much too firmly for any such divorce as that. No, Lily, I claim the right to tell you all my troubles; but I shall not let you go.”

“But, Adolphus—” and the hand on his arm was beginning to cling to it again.

“Adolphus,” said he, “has got nothing more to say on that subject. He exercises the right which he believes to be his own, and chooses to retain the prize which he has won.”

She was now clinging to him in very truth. “Oh, my love!” she said. “I do not know how to say it again. It is of you that I am thinking;—of you, of you!”

“Have I? Then listen to me again, once more, my heart’s own darling, my love, my husband, my lord! If I cannot be to you at once like Ruth, and never cease from coming after you, my thoughts to you shall be like those of Ruth;—if aught but death part thee and me, may God do so to me and more also.” Then she fell upon his breast and wept.

He still hardly understood the depth of her character. He was not himself deep enough to comprehend it all. But yet he was awed by her great love, and exalted to a certain solemnity of feeling which for the time made him rejoice in his late decision. For a few hours he was minded to throw the world behind him, and wear this woman, as such a woman should be worn,—as a comforter to him in all things, and a strong shield against great troubles. “Lily,” he said, “my own Lily!”

“Yes, your own, to take when you please, and leave untaken while you please; and as much your own in one way as in the other.” Then she looked up again, and essayed to laugh as she did so. “You will think I am frantic, but I am so happy. I don’t care about your going now; indeed I don’t. There; you may go now, this minute, if you like it.” And she withdrew her hand from his. “I feel so differently from what I have done for the last few days. I am so glad you have spoken to me as you did. Of course I ought to bear all those things with you. But I cannot be unhappy about it now. I wonder if I went to work and made a lot of things, whether that would help?”

“I pray God that it may.” Then again she was serious, and the tears came once more into her eyes. “I pray God that it may. To be of use to you,—to work for you,—to do something for you that may have in it some sober, earnest purport of usefulness,—that is what I want above all things. I want to be with you at once that I may be of service to you. Would that you and I were alone together, that I might do everything for you. I sometimes think that a very poor man’s wife is the happiest, because she does do everything.”

“You shall do everything very soon,” said he; and then they sauntered along pleasantly through the morning hours, and when they again appeared at Mrs Dale’s table, Mrs Dale and Bell were astonished at Lily’s brightness. All her old ways had seemed to return to her, and she made her little saucy speeches to Mr Crosbie as she had used to do when he was first becoming fascinated by her sweetness. “You know that you’ll be such a swell when you get to that countess’s house that you’ll forget all about Allington.”

“And the paper you write upon will be all over coronets,—that is, if ever you do write. Perhaps you will to Bernard some day, just to show that you are staying at a castle.”

“I don’t expect it for a moment,—not till he gets back to London and finds that he has nothing else to do at his office. But I should so like to see how you and Lady Julia get on together. It was quite clear that she regarded you as an ogre; didn’t she, Bell?”

“I believe Lady Julia to be a very good woman,” said Mrs Dale, “and I won’t have her abused.”

“Particularly before poor Bernard, who is her pet nephew,” said Lily. “I dare say Adolphus will become a pet too when she has been a week with him at Courcy Castle. Do try and cut Bernard out.”

From all which Mrs Dale learned that some care which had sat heavy on Lily’s heart was now lightened, if not altogether removed. She had asked no questions of her daughter, but she had perceived during the past few days that Lily was in trouble, and she knew that such trouble had arisen from her engagement. She had asked no questions, but of course she had been told what was Mr Crosbie’s income, and had been made to understand that it was not to be considered as amply sufficient for all the wants of matrimony. There was little difficulty in guessing what was the source of Lily’s care, and as little in now perceiving that something had been said between them by which that care had been relieved.

After that they all rode, and the afternoon went by pleasantly. It was the last day indeed, but Lily had determined that she would not be sad. She had told him that he might go now, and that she would not be discontented at his going. She knew that the morrow would be very blank to her; but she struggled to live up to the spirit of her promise, and she succeeded. They all dined at the Great House, even Mrs Dale doing so upon this occasion. When they had come in from the garden in the evening, Crosbie talked more to Mrs Dale than he did even to Lily, while Lily sat a little distant, listening with all her ears, sometimes saying a low-toned word, and happy beyond expression in the feeling that her mother and her lover should understand each other. And it must be understood that Crosbie at this time was fully determined to conquer the difficulties of which he had thought so much, and to fix the earliest day which might be possible for his marriage. The solemnity of that meeting in the field still hung about him, and gave to his present feelings a manliness and a truth of purpose which were too generally wanting to them. If only those feelings would last! But now he talked to Mrs Dale about her daughter, and about their future prospects, in a tone which he could not have used had not his mind for the time been true to her. He had never spoken so freely to Lily’s mother, and at no time had Mrs Dale felt for him so much of a mother’s love. He apologised for the necessity of some delay, arguing that he could not endure to see his young wife without the comfort of a home of her own, and that he was now, as he always had been, afraid of incurring debt. Mrs Dale disliked waiting engagements,—as do all mothers,—but she could not answer unkindly to such pleading as this.

“Lily is so very young,” she said, “that she may well wait for a year or so.”

“For seven years,” said Lily, jumping up and whispering into her mother’s ear. “I shall hardly be six-and-twenty then, which is not at all too old.”

“God bless you, Adolphus!” Mrs Dale said to him, as she parted with him at her own door. It was the first time that she had called him by his Christian name. “I hope you understand how much we are trusting to you.”

“I do,—I do,” said he, as he pressed her hand. Then as he walked back alone, he swore to himself, binding himself to the oath with all his heart, that he would be true to those women,—both to the daughter and to the mother; for the solemnity of the morning was still upon him.

He was to start the next morning before eight, Bernard having undertaken to drive him over to the railway at Guestwick. The breakfast was on the table shortly after seven; and just as the two men had come down, Lily entered the room, with her hat and shawl. “I said I would be in to pour out your tea,” said she; and then she sat herself down over against the teapot.

It was a silent meal, for people do not know what to say in those last minutes. And Bernard, too, was there; proving how true is the adage which says, that two are company, but that three are not. I think that Lily was wrong to come up on that last morning; but she would not hear of letting him start without seeing him, when her lover had begged her not to put herself to so much trouble. Trouble! Would she not have sat up all night to see even the last of the top of his hat?

Then Bernard, muttering something about the horse, went away. “I have only one minute to speak to you,” said she, jumping up, “and I have been thinking all night of what I had to say. It is so easy to think, and so hard to speak.”

“But you must understand this, that I will never distrust you. I will never ask you to give me up again, or say that I could be happy without you. I could not live without you; that is, without the knowledge that you are mine. But I will never be impatient, never. Pray, pray believe me! Nothing shall make me distrust you.”

“I know you will not; but I specially wanted to tell you that. And you will write,—very soon?”

“And as often as you can. But I won’t bother you; only your letters will make me so happy. I shall be so proud when they come to me. I shall be afraid of writing too much to you, for fear I should tire you.”

“Shall I not? But you must write first, you know. If you could only understand how I shall live upon your letters! And now goodbye. There are the wheels. God bless you, my own, my own!” And she gave herself up into his arms, as she had given herself up into his heart.

She stood at the door as the two men got into the gig, and, as it passed down through the gate, she hurried out upon the terrace, from whence she could see it for a few yards down the lane. Then she ran from the terrace to the gate, and, hurrying through the gate, made her way into the churchyard, from the farther corner of which she could see the heads of the two men till they had made the turn into the main road beyond the parsonage. There she remained till the very sound of the wheels no longer reached her ears, stretching her eyes in the direction they had taken. Then she turned round slowly and made her way out at the churchyard gate, which opened on to the road close to the front door of the Small House.

“I should like to punch his head,” said Hopkins, the gardener, to himself, as he saw the gig driven away and saw Lily trip after it, that she might see the last of him whom it carried. “And I wouldn’t think nothing of doing it; no more I wouldn’t,” Hopkins added in his soliloquy. It was generally thought about the place that Miss Lily was Hopkins’s favourite, though he showed it chiefly by snubbing her more frequently than he snubbed her sister.

Lily had evidently intended to return home through the front door; but she changed her purpose before she reached the house, and made her way slowly back through the churchyard, and by the gate of the Great House, and by the garden at the back of it, till she crossed the little bridge. But on the bridge she rested awhile, leaning against the railing as she had often leant with him, and thinking of all that had passed since that July day on which she had first met him. On no spot had he so often told her of his love as on this, and nowhere had she so eagerly sworn to him that she would be his own dutiful loving wife.

“And by God’s help so I will,” she said to herself, as she walked firmly up to the house. “He has gone, mamma,” she said, as she entered the breakfast-room. “And now we’ll go back to our work-a-day ways; it has been all Sunday for me for the last six weeks.”

Chapter XVI.
Mr Crosbie Meets an Old Clergyman on His Way to Courcy Castle

For the first mile or two of their journey Crosbie and Bernard Dale sat, for the most part, silent in their gig. Lily, as she ran down to the churchyard corner and stood there looking after them with her loving eyes, had not been seen by them. But the spirit of her devotion was still strong upon them both, and they felt that it would not be well to strike at once into any ordinary topic of conversation. And, moreover, we may presume that Crosbie did feel much at thus parting from such a girl as Lily Dale, with whom he had lived in close intercourse for the last six weeks, and whom he loved with all his heart,—with all the heart that he had for such purposes. In those doubts as to his marriage which had troubled him he had never expressed to himself any disapproval of Lily. He had not taught himself to think that she was other than he would have her be, that he might thus give himself an excuse for parting from her. Not as yet, at any rate, had he had recourse to that practice, so common with men who wish to free themselves from the bonds with which they have permitted themselves to be bound. Lily had been too sweet to his eyes, to his touch, to all his senses for that. He had enjoyed too keenly the pleasure of being with her, and of hearing her tell him that she loved him, to allow of his being personally tired of her. He had not been so spoilt by his club life but that he had taken exquisite pleasure in all her nice country ways, and soft, kindhearted, womanly humour. He was by no means tired of Lily. Better than any of his London pleasures was this pleasure of making love in the green fields to Lily Dale. It was the consequences of it that affrighted him. Babies with their belongings would come; and dull evenings, over a dull fire, or else the pining grief of a disappointed woman. He would be driven to be careful as to his clothes, because the ordering of a new coat would entail a serious expenditure. He could go no more among countesses and their daughters, because it would be out of the question that his wife should visit at their houses. All the victories that he had ever won must be given up. He was thinking of this even while the gig was going round the corner near the parsonage house, and while Lily’s eyes were still blessed with some view of his departing back; but he was thinking, also, that moment, that there might be other victory in store for him; that it might be possible for him to learn to like that fireside, even though babies should be there, and a woman opposite to him intent on baby cares. He was struggling as best he knew how; for the solemnity which Lily had imparted to him had not yet vanished from his spirit.

“I hope that, upon the whole, you feel contented with your visit?” said Bernard to him, at last.

“That is easily said; and civility to me, perhaps, demands as much. But I know that you have, to some extent, been disappointed.”

“Well; yes. I have been disappointed as regards money. It is of no use denying it.”

“I should not mention it now, only that I want to know that you exonerate me.”

“I have never blamed you;—neither you, nor anybody else; unless, indeed, it has been myself.”

“No; I don’t mean that. I am too devotedly attached to that dear girl whom we have just left to feel any regret that I have engaged myself to her. But I do think that had I managed better with your uncle things might have been different.”

“I doubt it. Indeed I know that it is not so; and can assure you that you need not make yourself unhappy on that score. I had thought, as you well know, that he would have done something for Lily;—something, though not as much as he always intended to do for Bell. But you may be sure of this; that he had made up his mind as to what he would do. Nothing that you or I could have said would have changed him.”

“Well; we won’t say anything more about it,” said Crosbie. Then they went on again in silence, and arrived at Guestwick in ample time for the train.

And so they parted. As Dale turned and went, Crosbie felt that he liked him less than he had done before; and Bernard, also, as he was driving him, came to the conclusion that Crosbie would not be so good a fellow as a brother-in-law as he had been as a chance friend. “He’ll give us trouble, in some way; and I’m sorry that I brought him down.” That was Dale’s inward conviction in the matter.

Crosbie’s way from Guestwick lay, by railway, to Barchester, the cathedral city lying in the next county, from whence he purposed to have himself conveyed over to Courcy. There had, in truth, been no cause for his very early departure, as he was aware that all arrivals at country houses should take place at some hour not much previous to dinner. He had been determined to be so soon upon the road by a feeling that it would be well for him to get over those last hours. Thus he found himself in Barchester at eleven o’clock, with nothing on his hands to do; and, having nothing else to do, he went to church. There was a full service at the cathedral, and as the verger marshalled him up to one of the empty stalls, a little spare old man was beginning to chant the Litany. “I did not mean to fall in for all this,” said Crosbie, to himself, as he settled himself with his arms on the cushion. But the peculiar charm of that old man’s voice soon attracted him;—a voice that, though tremulous, was yet strong; and he ceased to regret the saint whose honour and glory had occasioned the length of that day’s special service.

“And who is the old gentleman who chanted the Litany?” he asked the verger afterwards, as he allowed himself to be shown round the monuments of the cathedral.

“That’s our precentor, sir, Mr Harding. You must have heard of Mr Harding.” But Crosbie, with a full apology, confessed his ignorance.

“Well, sir; he’s pretty well known too, tho’ he is so shy like. He’s father-in-law to our dean, sir; and father-in-law to Archdeacon Grantly also.”

“Why, yes; but Miss Eleanor—for I remember her before she was married at all,—when they lived at the hospital—”

“Hiram’s hospital, sir. He was warden, you know. You should go and see the hospital, sir, if you never was there before. Well, Miss Eleanor,—that was his youngest,—she married Mr Bold as her first. But now she’s the dean’s lady.”

“Yes, indeed. And what do you think, sir? Mr Harding might have been dean himself if he’d liked. They did offer it to him.”

“Just that, sir; because he is modest. He’s past his seventy now,—ever so much; but he’s just as modest as a young girl. A deal more modest than some of them. To see him and his granddaughter together!”

“I know Lady Dumbello,” said Crosbie; not meaning, however, to boast to the verger of his noble acquaintance.

“Oh, do you, sir?” said the man, unconsciously touching his hat at this sign of greatness in the stranger; though in truth he had no love for her ladyship. “Perhaps you’re going to be one of the party at Courcy Castle.”

“You’ll find her ladyship there before you. She lunched with her aunt at the deanery as she went through, yesterday; finding it too much trouble to go out to her father’s, at Plumstead. Her father is the archdeacon, you know. They do say—but her ladyship is your friend!”

“No friend at all; only a very slight acquaintance. She’s quite as much above my line as she is above her father’s.”

“Well, she is above them all. They say she would hardly as much as speak to the old gentleman.”

“No, Mr Harding; he that chanted the Litany just now. There he is, sir, coming out of the deanery.”

They were now standing at the door leading out from one of the transepts, and Mr Harding passed them as they were speaking together. He was a little, withered, shambling old man, with bent shoulders, dressed in knee-breeches and long black gaiters, which hung rather loosely about his poor old legs,—rubbing his hands one over the other as he went. And yet he walked quickly; not tottering as he walked, but with an uncertain, doubtful step. The verger, as Mr Harding passed, put his hand to his head, and Crosbie also raised his hat. Whereupon Mr Harding raised his, and bowed, and turned round as though he were about to speak. Crosbie felt that he had never seen a face on which traits of human kindness were more plainly written. But the old man did not speak. He turned his body half round, and then shambled back, as though ashamed of his intention, and passed on.

“He is of that sort that they make the angels of,” said the verger. “But they can’t make many if they want them all as good as he is. I’m much obliged to you, sir.” And he pocketed the halfcrown which Crosbie gave him.

“So that’s Lady Dumbello’s grandfather,” said Crosbie, to himself, as he walked slowly round the close towards the hospital, by the path which the verger had shown him. He had no great love for Lady Dumbello, who had dared to snub him—even him. “They may make an angel of the old gentleman,” he continued to say; “but they’ll never succeed in that way with the granddaughter.”

He sauntered slowly on over a little bridge; and at the gate of the hospital he again came upon Mr Harding. “I was going to venture in,” said he, “to look at the place. But perhaps I shall be intruding?”

“No, no; by no means,” said Mr Harding. “Pray come in. I cannot say that I am just at home here. I do not live here,—not now. But I know the ways of the place well, and can make you welcome. That’s the warden’s house. Perhaps we won’t go in so early in the day, as the lady has a very large family. An excellent lady, and a dear friend of mine,—as is her husband.”

“Yes, warden of the hospital. You see the house, sir. Very pretty, isn’t it? Very pretty. To my idea it’s the prettiest built house I ever saw.”

“But you would if you’d lived there twelve years, as I did. I lived in that house twelve years, and I don’t think there’s so sweet a spot on the earth’s surface. Did you ever see such turf as that?”

“Very nice indeed,” said Crosbie, who began to make a comparison with Mrs Dale’s turf at the Small House, and to determine that the Allington turf was better than that of the hospital.

“I had that turf laid down myself. There were borders there when I first came, with hollyhocks, and those sort of things. The turf was an improvement.”

“The turf was an improvement, certainly. And I planted those shrubs, too. There isn’t such a Portugal laurel as that in the county.”

“Were you warden here, sir?” And Crosbie, as he asked the question, remembered that, in his very young days, he had heard of some newspaper quarrel which had taken place about Hiram’s hospital at Barchester.

“Yes, sir. I was warden here for twelve years. Dear, dear, dear! If they had put any gentleman here that was not on friendly terms with me it would have made me very unhappy,—very. But, as it is, I go in and out just as I like; almost as much as I did before they— But they didn’t turn me out. There were reasons which made it best that I should resign.”

“Yes; I live at the deanery now. But I am not dean, you know. My son-in-law, Dr Arabin, is the dean. I have another daughter married in the neighbourhood, and can truly say that my lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.”

Then he took Crosbie in among the old men, into all of whose rooms he went. It was an almshouse for aged men of the city, and before Crosbie had left him Mr Harding had explained all the circumstances of the hospital, and of the way in which he had left it. “I didn’t like going, you know; I thought it would break my heart. But I could not stay when they said such things as that;—I couldn’t stay. And, what is more, I should have been wrong to stay. I see it all now. But when I went out under that arch, Mr Crosbie, leaning on my daughter’s arm, I thought that my heart would have broken.” And the tears even now ran down the old man’s cheeks as he spoke.

It was a long story, and it need not be repeated here. And there was no reason why it should have been told to Mr Crosbie, other than this,—that Mr Harding was a fond garrulous old man, who loved to indulge his mind in reminiscences of the past. But this was remarked by Crosbie; that, in telling his story, no word was said by Mr Harding injurious to any one. And yet he had been injured,—injured very deeply. “It was all for the best,” he said at last; “especially as the happiness has not been denied to me of making myself at home at the old place. I would take you into the house, which is very comfortable,—very, only it is not always convenient early in the day, when there’s a large family.” In hearing which, Crosbie was again made to think of his own future home and limited income.

He had told the old clergyman who he was, and that he was on his way to Courcy. “Where, as I understand, I shall meet a granddaughter of yours.”

“Yes, yes; she is my grandchild. She and I have got into different walks of life now, so that I don’t see much of her. They tell me that she does her duty well in that sphere of life to which it has pleased God to call her.”

“That depends,” thought Crosbie, “on what the duties of a viscountess may be supposed to be.” But he wished his new friend goodbye, without saying anything further as to Lady Dumbello, and, at about six o’clock in the evening, had himself driven up under the portico of Courcy Castle.

Chapter XVII.
Courcy Castle

Courcy Castle was very full. In the first place, there was a great gathering there of all the Courcy family. The earl was there,—and the countess, of course. At this period of the year Lady de Courcy was always at home; but the presence of the earl himself had heretofore been by no means so certain. He was a man who had been much given to royal visitings and attendances, to parties in the Highlands, to,—no doubt necessary,—prolongations of the London season, to sojournings at certain German watering-places, convenient, probably, in order that he might study the ways and ceremonies of German Courts,—and to various other absences from home, occasioned by a close pursuit of his own special aims in life; for the Earl de Courcy had been a great courtier. But of late gout, lumbago, and perhaps also some diminution in his powers of making himself generally agreeable, had reconciled him to domestic duties, and the earl spent much of his time at home. The countess, in former days, had been heard to complain of her lord’s frequent absence. But it is hard to please some women,—and now she would not always be satisfied with his presence.

And all the sons and daughters were there,—excepting Lord Porlock, the eldest, who never met his father. The earl and Lord Porlock were not on terms, and indeed hated each other as only such fathers and such sons can hate. The Honourable George de Courcy was there with his bride, he having lately performed a manifest duty, in having married a young woman with money. Very young she was not,—having reached some years of her life in advance of thirty; but then, neither was the Honourable George very young; and in this respect the two were not ill-sorted. The lady’s money had not been very much,—perhaps thirty thousand pounds or so. But then the Honourable George’s money had been absolutely none. Now he had an income on which he could live, and therefore his father and mother had forgiven him all his sins, and taken him again to their bosom. And the marriage was matter of great moment, for the elder scion of the house had not yet taken to himself a wife, and the de Courcy family might have to look to this union for an heir. The lady herself was not beautiful, or clever, or of imposing manners,—nor was she of high birth. But neither was she ugly, nor unbearably stupid. Her manners were, at any rate, innocent; and as to her birth,—seeing that, from the first, she was not supposed to have had any,—no disappointment was felt. Her father had been a coal-merchant. She was always called Mrs George, and the effort made respecting her by everybody in and about the family was to treat her as though she were a figure of a woman, a large well-dressed resemblance of a being, whom it was necessary for certain purposes that the de Courcys should carry in their train. Of the Honourable George we may further observe, that, having been a spendthrift all his life, he had now become strictly parsimonious. Having reached the discreet age of forty, he had at last learned that beggary was objectionable; and he, therefore, devoted every energy of his mind to saving shillings and pence wherever pence and shillings might be saved. When first this turn came upon him both his father and mother were delighted to observe it; but, although it had hardly yet lasted over twelve months, some evil results were beginning to appear. Though possessed of an income, he would take no steps towards possessing himself of a house. He hung by the paternal mansion, either in town or country; drank the paternal wines, rode the paternal horses, and had even contrived to obtain his wife’s dresses from the maternal milliner. In the completion of which little last success, however, some slight family dissent had showed itself.

The Honourable John, the third son, was also at Courcy. He had as yet taken to himself no wife, and as he had not hitherto made himself conspicuously useful in any special walk of life his family were beginning to regard him as a burden. Having no income of his own to save, he had not copied his brother’s virtue of parsimony; and, to tell the truth plainly, had made himself so generally troublesome to his father, that he had been on more than one occasion threatened with expulsion from the family roof. But it is not easy to expel a son. Human fledglings cannot be driven out of the nest like young birds. An Honourable John turned adrift into absolute poverty will make himself heard of in the world,—if in no other way, by his ugliness as he starves. A thoroughgoing ne’er-do-well in the upper classes has eminent advantages on his side in the battle which he fights against respectability. He can’t be sent to Australia against his will. He can’t be sent to the poorhouse without the knowledge of all the world. He can’t be kept out of tradesmen’s shops; nor, without terrible scandal, can he be kept away from the paternal properties. The earl had threatened, and snarled, and shown his teeth; he was an angry man, and a man who could look very angry; with eyes which could almost become red, and a brow that wrinkled itself in perpendicular wrinkles, sometimes very terrible to behold. But he was an inconsistent man, and the Honourable John had learned to measure his father, and in an accurate balance.

I have mentioned the sons first, because it is to be presumed that they were the elder, seeing that their names were mentioned before those of their sisters in all the peerages. But there were four daughters,—the Ladies Amelia, Rosina, Margaretta, and Alexandrina. They, we may say, were the flowers of the family, having so lived that they had created none of those family feuds which had been so frequent between their father and their brothers. They were discreet, high-bred women, thinking, perhaps, a little too much of their own position in the world, and somewhat apt to put a wrong value on those advantages which they possessed, and on those which they did not possess. The Lady Amelia was already married, having made a substantial if not a brilliant match with Mr Mortimer Gazebee, a flourishing solicitor, belonging to a firm which had for many years acted as agents to the de Courcy property. Mortimer Gazebee was now member of Parliament for Barchester, partly through the influence of his father-in-law. That this should be so was a matter of great disgust to the Honourable George, who thought that the seat should have belonged to him. But as Mr Gazebee had paid the very heavy expenses of the election out of his own pocket, and as George de Courcy certainly could not have paid them, the justice of his claim may be questionable. Lady Amelia Gazebee was now the happy mother of many babies, whom she was wont to carry with her on her visits to Courcy Castle, and had become an excellent partner to her husband. He would perhaps have liked it better if she had not spoken so frequently to him of her own high position as the daughter of an earl, or so frequently to others of her low position as the wife of an attorney. But, on the whole, they did very well together, and Mr Gazebee had gotten from his marriage quite as much as he expected when he made it.

The Lady Rosina was very religious; and I do not know that she was conspicuous in any other way, unless it might be that she somewhat resembled her father in her temper. It was of the Lady Rosina that the servants were afraid, especially with reference to that so-called day of rest which, under her dominion, had become to many of them a day of restless torment. It had not always been so with the Lady Rosina; but her eyes had been opened by the wife of a great church dignitary in the neighbourhood, and she had undergone regeneration. How great may be the misery inflicted by an energetic, unmarried, healthy woman in that condition,—a woman with no husband, or children, or duties, to distract her from her work,—I pray that my readers may never know.

The Lady Margaretta was her mother’s favourite, and she was like her mother in all things,—except that her mother had been a beauty. The world called her proud, disdainful, and even insolent; but the world was not aware that in all that she did she was acting in accordance with a principle which had called for much self-abnegation. She had considered it her duty to be a de Courcy and an earl’s daughter at all times; and consequently she had sacrificed to her idea of duty all popularity, adulation, and such admiration as would have been awarded to her as a well-dressed, tall, fashionable, and by no means stupid young woman. To be at all times in something higher than they who were manifestly below her in rank,—that was the effort that she was ever making. But she had been a good daughter, assisting her mother, as best she might, in all family troubles, and never repining at the cold, colourless, unlovely life which had been vouchsafed to her.

Alexandrina was the beauty of the family, and was in truth the youngest. But even she was not very young, and was beginning to make her friends uneasy lest she, too, should let the precious season of hay-harvest run by without due use of her summer’s sun. She had, perhaps, counted too much on her beauty, which had been beauty according to law rather than beauty according to taste, and had looked, probably, for too bounteous a harvest. That her forehead, and nose, and cheeks, and chin were well-formed, no man could deny. Her hair was soft and plentiful. Her teeth were good, and her eyes were long and oval. But the fault of her face was this,—that when you left her you could not remember it. After a first acquaintance you could meet her again and not know her. After many meetings you would fail to carry away with you any portrait of her features. But such as she had been at twenty, such was she now at thirty. Years had not robbed her face of its regularity, or ruffled the smoothness of her too even forehead. Rumour had declared that on more than one, or perhaps more than two occasions, Lady Alexandrina had been already induced to plight her troth in return for proffered love; but we all know that Rumour, when she takes to such topics, exaggerates the truth, and sets down much in malice. The lady was once engaged, the engagement lasting for two years, and the engagement had been broken off, owing to some money difficulties between the gentlemen of the families. Since that she had become somewhat querulous, and was supposed to be uneasy on that subject of her haymaking. Her glass and her maid assured her that her sun shone still as brightly as ever; but her spirit was becoming weary with waiting, and she dreaded lest she should become a terror to all, as was her sister Rosina, or an object of interest to none, as was Margaretta. It was from her especially that this message had been sent to our friend Crosbie; for, during the last spring in London, she and Crosbie had known each other well. Yes, my gentle readers; it is true, as your heart suggests to you. Under such circumstances Mr Crosbie should not have gone to Courcy Castle.

Such was the family circle of the de Courcys. Among their present guests I need not enumerate many. First and foremost in all respects was Lady Dumbello, of whose parentage and position a few words were said in the last chapter. She was a lady still very young, having as yet been little more than two years married. But in those two years her triumphs had been many;—so many, that in the great world her standing already equalled that of her celebrated motherin-law, the Marchioness of Hartletop, who, for twenty years, had owned no greater potentate than herself in the realms of fashion. But Lady Dumbello was every inch as great as she; and men said, and women also, that the daughter-in-law would soon be the greater.

“I’ll be hanged if I can understand how she does it,” a certain noble peer had once said to Crosbie, standing at the door of Sebright’s, during the latter days of the last season. “She never says anything to any one. She won’t speak ten words a whole night through.”

“Let me tell you that she must be a very clever woman,” continued the noble peer. “No fool could do as she does. Remember, she’s only a parson’s daughter; and as for beauty—”

“I don’t want to run away with her, if you mean that,” said the peer; “but she is handsome, no doubt. I wonder whether Dumbello likes it.”

Dumbello did like it. It satisfied his ambition to be led about as the senior lacquey in his wife’s train. He believed himself to be a great man because the world fought for his wife’s presence; and considered himself to be distinguished even among the eldest sons of marquises, by the greatness reflected from the parson’s daughter whom he had married. He had now been brought to Courcy Castle, and felt himself proud of his situation because Lady Dumbello had made considerable difficulty in according this week to the Countess de Courcy.

And Lady Julia De Guest was already there, the sister of the other old earl, who lived in the next county. She had only arrived on the day before, but had been quick in spreading the news as to Crosbie’s engagement. “Engaged to one of the Dales, is he?” said the countess, with a pretty little smile, which showed plainly that the matter was one of no interest to herself. “Has she got any money?”

“Why, yes; she is pretty,—and a nice girl. I don’t know whether her mother and uncle were very wise in encouraging Mr Crosbie. I don’t hear that he has anything special to recommend him,—in the way of money I mean.”

“I dare say it will come to nothing,” said the countess, who liked to hear of girls being engaged and then losing their promised husbands. She did not know that she liked it, but she did; and already had pleasure in anticipating poor Lily’s discomfiture. But not the less was she angry with Crosbie, feeling that he was making his way into her house under false pretences.

And Alexandrina also was angry when Lady Julia repeated the same tidings in her hearing. “I really don’t think we care very much about it, Lady Julia,” said she, with a little toss of her head. “That’s three times we’ve been told of Miss Dale’s good fortune.”

“Not at all,” said Lady Julia, bristling up. “The lady whom Mr Crosbie proposes to marry is in no way connected with us. Her cousin, who is the heir to the Allington property, is my nephew by his mother.” And then the subject was dropped.

Crosbie, on his arrival, was shown up into his room, told the hour of dinner, and left to his devices. He had been at the castle before, and knew the ways of the house. So he sat himself down to his table, and began a letter to Lily. But he had not proceeded far, not having as yet indeed made up his mind as to the form in which he would commence it, but was sitting idly with the pen in his hand, thinking of Lily, and thinking also how such houses as this in which he now found himself would be soon closed against him, when there came a rap at his door, and before he could answer the Honourable John entered the room.

Crosbie had been intimate with John de Courcy, but never felt for him either friendship or liking. Crosbie did not like such men as John de Courcy; but nevertheless, they called each other old fellow, poked each other’s ribs, and were very intimate.

“Heard you were here,” continued the Honourable John; “so I thought I would come up and look after you. Going to be married, ain’t you?”

“Come, we know better than that. The women have been talking about it for the last three days. I had her name quite pat yesterday, but I’ve forgot it now. Hasn’t got a tanner; has she?” And the Honourable John had now seated himself upon the table.

“It is that old woman from Guestwick who told us, then. The women will be at you at once, you’ll find. If there’s nothing in it, it’s what I call a d–––– shame. Why should they always pull a fellow to pieces in that way? They were going to marry me the other day!”

“To Harriet Twistleton. You know Harriet Twistleton? An uncommon fine girl, you know. But I wasn’t going to be caught like that. I’m very fond of Harriet,—in my way, you know; but they don’t catch an old bird like me with chaff.”

“I don’t know about condoling. But upon my word that getting married is a very slow thing. Have you seen George’s wife?”

“She’s here now, you know. I wouldn’t have taken her, not if she’d had ten times thirty thousand pounds. By Jove, no. But he likes it well enough. Would you believe it now?—he cares for nothing on earth except money. You never saw such a fellow. But I’ll tell you what, his nose will be out of joint yet, for Porlock is going to marry. I heard it from Colepepper, who almost lives with Porlock. As soon as Porlock heard that she was in the family way he immediately made up his mind to cut him out.”

“I knew he’d do it,” said John; “and so I told George before he got himself spliced. But he would go on. If he’d remained as he was for four or five years longer there would have been no danger;—for Porlock, you know, is leading the deuce of a life. I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t reform now, and take to singing psalms or something of that sort.”

“By George, no. But I’ll tell you what, they’ll find no change in me. If I marry it will not be with the intention of giving up life. I say, old fellow, have you got a cigar here?”

“Not whilst I am occupier of this room. Besides, it’s time to dress for dinner.”

“Is it? So it is, by George! But I mean to have a smoke first, I can tell you. So it’s all a lie about your being engaged; eh?”

What was he to do at once, now, this very day, as to his engagement? He had felt sure that the report of it would be carried to Courcy by Lady Julia De Guest, but he had not settled down upon any resolution as to what he would do in consequence. It had not occurred to him that he would immediately be charged with the offence, and called upon to plead guilty or not guilty. He had never for a moment meditated any plea of not guilty, but he was aware of an aversion on his part to declare himself as engaged to Lilian Dale. It seemed that by doing so he would cut himself off at once from all pleasure at such houses as Courcy Castle; and, as he argued to himself, why should he not enjoy the little remnant of his bachelor life? As to his denying his engagement to John de Courcy,—that was nothing. Any one would understand that he would be justified in concealing a fact concerning himself from such a one as he. The denial repeated from John’s mouth would amount to nothing,—even among John’s own sisters. But now it was necessary that Crosbie should make up his mind as to what he would say when questioned by the ladies of the house. If he were to deny the fact to them the denial would be very serious. And, indeed, was it possible that he should make such denial with Lady Julia opposite to him?

Make such a denial! And was it the fact that he could wish to do so,—that he should think of such falsehood, and even meditate on the perpetration of such cowardice? He had held that young girl to his heart on that very morning. He had sworn to her, and had also sworn to himself, that she should have no reason for distrusting him. He had acknowledged most solemnly to himself that, whether for good or for ill, he was bound to her; and could it be that he was already calculating as to the practicability of disowning her? In doing so must he not have told himself that he was a villain? But in truth he made no such calculation. His object was to banish the subject, if it were possible to do so; to think of some answer by which he might create a doubt. It did not occur to him to tell the countess boldly that there was no truth whatever in the report, and that Miss Dale was nothing to him. But might he not skilfully laugh off the subject, even in the presence of Lady Julia? Men who were engaged did so usually, and why should not he? It was generally thought that solicitude for the lady’s feelings should prevent a man from talking openly of his own engagement. Then he remembered the easy freedom with which his position had been discussed throughout the whole neighbourhood of Allington, and felt for the first time that the Dale family had been almost indelicate in their want of reticence. “I suppose it was done to tie me the faster,” he said to himself, as he pulled out the ends of his cravat. “What a fool I was to come here, or indeed to go anywhere, after settling myself as I have done.” And then he went down into the drawing-room.

It was almost a relief to him when he found that he was not charged with his sin at once. He himself had been so full of the subject that he had expected to be attacked at the moment of his entrance. He was, however, greeted without any allusion to the matter. The countess, in her own quiet way, shook hands with him as though she had seen him only the day before. The earl, who was seated in his armchair, asked some one, out loud, who the stranger was, and then, with two fingers put forth, muttered some apology for a welcome. But Crosbie was quite up to that kind of thing. “How do, my lord?” he said, turning his face away to some one else as he spoke; and then he took no further notice of the master of the house. “Not know him, indeed!” Crippled though he was by his matrimonial bond, Crosbie felt that, at any rate as yet, he was the earl’s equal in social importance. After that, he found himself in the back part of the drawing-room, away from the elder people, standing with Lady Alexandrina, with Miss Gresham, a cousin of the de Courcys, and sundry other of the younger portion of the assembled community.

“Oh, yes; the dear creature!” said Lady Margaretta. “It was so good of her to come, you know.”

“She positively refused the Duchess of St Bungay,” said Alexandrina. “I hope you perceive how good we’ve been to you in getting you to meet her. People have actually asked to come.”

“I am grateful; but, in truth, my gratitude has more to do with Courcy Castle and its habitual inmates, than with Lady Dumbello. Is he here?”

“Oh, yes! he’s in the room somewhere. There he is, standing up by Lady Clandidlem. He always stands in that way before dinner. In the evening he sits down much after the same fashion.”

Crosbie had seen him on first entering the room, and had seen every individual in it. He knew better than to omit the duty of that scrutinising glance; but it sounded well in his line not to have observed Lord Dumbello.

“Indeed it is!” said Margaretta, with energy. Then the door was opened, and Lady Dumbello entered the room.

There was immediately a commotion among them all. Even the gouty old lord shuffled up out of his chair, and tried, with a grin, to look sweet and pleasant. The countess came forward, looking very sweet and pleasant, making little complimentary speeches, to which the viscountess answered simply by a gracious smile. Lady Clandidlem, though she was very fat and heavy, left the viscount, and got up to join the group. Baron Potsneuf, a diplomatic German of great celebrity, crossed his hands upon his breast, and made a low bow. The Honourable George, who had stood silent for the last quarter of an hour, suggested to her ladyship that she must have found the air rather cold; and the Ladies Margaretta and Alexandrina fluttered up with little complimentary speeches to their dear Lady Dumbello, hoping this and beseeching that, as though the “Woman in White” before them had been the dearest friend of their infancy.

She was a woman in white, being dressed in white silk, with white lace over it, and with no other jewels upon her person than diamonds. Very beautifully she was dressed; doing infinite credit, no doubt, to those three artists who had, between them, succeeded in turning her out of hand. And her face, also, was beautiful, with a certain cold, inexpressive beauty. She walked up the room very slowly, smiling here and smiling there; but still with very faint smiles, and took the place which her hostess indicated to her. One word she said to the countess and two to the earl. Beyond that she did not open her lips. All the homage paid to her she received as though it were clearly her due. She was not in the least embarrassed, nor did she show herself to be in the slightest degree ashamed of her own silence. She did not look like a fool, nor was she even taken for a fool; but she contributed nothing to society but her cold, hard beauty, her gait, and her dress. We may say that she contributed enough, for society acknowledged itself to be deeply indebted to her.

The only person in the room who did not move at Lady Dumbello’s entrance was her husband. But he remained unmoved from no want of enthusiasm. A spark of pleasure actually beamed in his eye as he saw the triumphant entrance of his wife. He felt that he had made a match that was becoming to him as a great nobleman, and that the world was acknowledging that he had done his duty. And yet Lady Dumbello had been simply the daughter of a country parson, of a clergyman who had reached no higher rank than that of an archdeacon. “How wonderfully well that woman has educated her,” the countess said that evening in her dressingroom, to Margaretta. The woman alluded to was Mrs Grantly, the wife of the parson and mother of Lady Dumbello.

The old earl was very cross because destiny and the table of precedence required him to take out Lady Clandidlem to dinner. He almost insulted her, as she kindly endeavoured to assist him in his infirm step rather than to lean upon him.

“Ugh!” he said, “it’s a bad arrangement that makes two old people like you and me be sent out together to help each other.”

“Speak for yourself,” said her ladyship, with a laugh. “I, at any rate, can get about without any assistance,”—which, indeed, was true enough.

And after that he endeavoured to solace his pain by a flirtation with Lady Dumbello on his left. The earl’s smiles and the earl’s teeth, when he whispered naughty little nothings to pretty young women, were phenomena at which men might marvel. Whatever those naughty nothings were on the present occasion, Lady Dumbello took them all with placidity, smiling graciously, but speaking hardly more than monosyllables.

Lady Alexandrina fell to Crosbie’s lot, and he felt gratified that it was so. It might be necessary for him, as a married man, to give up such acquaintances as the de Courcys, but he should like, if possible, to maintain a friendship with Lady Alexandrina. What a friend Lady Alexandrina would be for Lily, if any such friendship were only possible! What an advantage would such an alliance confer upon that dear little girl;—for, after all, though the dear little girl’s attractions were very great, he could not but admit to himself that she wanted a something,—a way of holding herself and of speaking, which some people call style. Lily might certainly learn a great deal from Lady Alexandrina; and it was this conviction, no doubt, which made him so sedulous in pleasing that lady on the present occasion.

And she, as it seemed, was well inclined to be pleased. She said no word to him during dinner about Lily; and yet she spoke about the Dales, and about Allington, showing that she knew in what quarters he had been staying, and then she alluded to their last parties in London,—those occasions on which, as Crosbie now remembered, the intercourse between them had almost been tender. It was manifest to him that at any rate she did not wish to quarrel with him. It was manifest, also, that she had some little hesitation in speaking to him about his engagement. He did not for a moment doubt that she was aware of it. And in this way matters went on between them till the ladies left the room.

“So you’re going to be married, too,” said the Honourable George, by whose side Crosbie found himself seated when the ladies were gone. Crosbie was employing himself upon a walnut, and did not find it necessary to make any answer.

“It’s the best thing a fellow can do,” continued George; “that is, if he has been careful to look to the main chance,—if he hasn’t been caught napping, you know. It doesn’t do for a man to go hanging on by nothing till he finds himself an old man.”

“Yes; I’ve got something in the scramble, and I mean to keep it. Where will John be when the governor goes off the hooks? Porlock wouldn’t give him a bit of bread and cheese and a glass of beer to save his life;—that is to say, not if he wanted it.”

“You’ve heard that from John. He’s spreading that about everywhere to take a rise out of me. I don’t believe a word of it. Porlock never was a marrying man;—and, what’s more, from all I hear, I don’t think he’ll live long.”

In this way Crosbie escaped from his own difficulty; and when he rose from the dinner-table had not as yet been driven to confess anything to his own discredit.

But the evening was not yet over. When he returned to the drawing-room he endeavoured to avoid any conversation with the countess herself, believing that the attack would more probably come from her than from her daughter. He, therefore, got into conversation first with one and then with another of the girls, till at last he found himself again alone with Alexandrina.

“Mr Crosbie,” she said, in a low voice, as they were standing together over one of the distant tables, with their backs to the rest of the company, “I want you to tell me something about Miss Lilian Dale.”

“And very nice, and attractive, and clever,—and all that is delightful? Is she perfect?”

“She is very attractive,” said he; “but I don’t think she’s perfect.”

“That question is hardly fair, is it? Suppose any one were to ask me what were your faults, do you think I should answer the question?”

“I am quite sure you would, and make a very long list of them, too. But as to Miss Dale, you ought to think her perfect. If a gentleman were engaged to me, I should expect him to swear before all the world that I was the very pink of perfection.”

“I am not engaged to you,” said Crosbie. “Such happiness and such honour are, I fear, very far beyond my reach. But, nevertheless, I am prepared to testify as to your perfection anywhere.”

“Allow me to assure you that such opinions as I may choose to express of my friends will be my own opinions, and not depend on those of any one else.”

“And you think, then, that you are not bound to be enslaved as yet? How many more months of such freedom are you to enjoy?”

Crosbie remained silent for a minute before he answered, and then he spoke in a serious voice. “Lady Alexandrina,” said he, “I would beg from you a great favour.”

“I am quite in earnest. Will you be good enough, kind enough, enough my friend, not to connect my name again with that of Miss Dale while I am here?”

“No; there has been no quarrel. I cannot explain to you now why I make this request; but to you I will explain it before I go.”

“I have regarded you as more than an acquaintance,—as a friend. In days now past there were moments when I was almost rash enough to hope that I might have said even more than that. I confess that I had no warrant for such hopes, but I believe that I may still look on you as a friend?”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” said Alexandrina, in a very low voice, and with a certain amount of tenderness in her tone. “I have always regarded you as a friend.”

“And therefore I venture to make the request. The subject is not one on which I can speak openly, without regret, at the present moment. But to you, at least, I promise that I will explain it all before I leave Courcy.”

He at any rate succeeded in mystifying Lady Alexandrina. “I don’t believe he is engaged a bit,” she said to Lady Amelia Gazebee that night.

“Nonsense, my dear. Lady Julia wouldn’t speak of it in that certain way if she didn’t know. Of course he doesn’t wish to have it talked about.”

“If ever he has been engaged to her, he has broken it off again,” said Lady Alexandrina.

“I dare say he will, my dear, if you give him encouragement,” said the married sister, with great sisterly goodnature.

Chapter IX. Mrs Dale’s Little Party

Chapter X. Mrs Lupex and Amelia Roper

Chapter XI. Social Life

Chapter XII. Lilian Dale Becomes a Butterfly

Chapter XIII. A Visit to Guestwick

Chapter XIV. John Eames Takes a Walk

Chapter XV. The Last Day

Chapter XVI. Mr Crosbie Meets an Old Clergyman on His Way to Courcy Castle

Chapter XVII. Courcy Castle

Chapter IX.
Mrs Dale’s Little Party